Two patients from a nursing home at the epicentre of the US’s coronavirus crisis appear to have made a recovery after having initially been tested positive for the disease.

In a rare piece of good news on a day when the global number of deaths from Covid-19 passed 11,000 and the total number of infections soared to 260,000, a spokesman for the Seattle area care home said two patients who tested positive, had taken a second test after days of hospital treatment and were now considered negative.

“It’s wonderful news for us,” Tim Killian, a spokesperson for the Life Care Centre of Kirkland, told The Independent.

“We have not transferred anybody to the hospital since last Friday.”

He added: “That is a bit of good news in what has otherwise been very dark news.”

The development at the facility, first reported by ABC News, came as officials across Washington state, continued to detail an increase in both infections and deaths.

The Washington State health department, said it had confirmed 136 cases and seven deaths from COVID-19.

King County health department confirmed the recoveries. "Two patients from the Life Care Centre of Kirkland nursing home who tested positive for COVID-19 have recovered and are now testing negative, nursing home officials announced Friday," it said.

On Friday, that brought the total of confirmed cases to more than 1,500 and the number of deaths to 81. The bulk have taken place in King County, which includes Seattle.

The Life Care Centre in the suburb of Kirkland has reported the deaths of 33 elderly residents since the outbreak struck, and one of its residents was the first person in the US to die from the virus.

Officials said some of those 33 may not have had the virus.

The facility currently has 42 residents, 31 of whom tested positive for coronavirus and 11 who tested negative, officials said.

Mr Killian said staff at the centre would hoping it had marked a changing point.

“We hope there has been slowing,” he said. “We’re cautiously optimistic about that. We can’t positively say that this event has passed. We’re still very much dealing with it within our facility. But yeah, these two patients…”

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