SEATTLE — The first public indication that something was wrong inside the Life Care nursing care center in Kirkland, Wash., came on Friday, prompting an alarming sign to go up on the front door: “WE ARE HAVING RESPIRATORY OUTBREAK.”

Since then, officials have announced a series of coronavirus cases, some of them fatal, from the facility, which has become an ominous symbol of the dangers the virus poses.

On Tuesday, the authorities made another jarring announcement: The first virus-related deaths tied to the nursing center occurred days earlier than previously known — and well before residents had been quarantined in their rooms.

A man in his 50s, who was rushed from the facility in a Seattle suburb to a hospital on Feb. 24, died last Wednesday. On the same day, another patient from the center, a woman in her 80s, died at her family home. Both of their deaths have now been attributed to the coronavirus.