A quarter of the residents of a Park Ridge nursing home — 33 people — have died since the coronavirus epidemic began, and 22 others who tested positive for COVID-19 have been moved to a facility in Gloucester County, more than 100 miles away, as the crisis enveloping New Jersey’s nursing homes worsens.

Among the 33 deaths at the facility were 19 who had tested positive for COVID-19.

More sick residents were to be transferred out of the Atrium Post Acute Care at Park Ridge on Thursday, said a spokeswoman for the operators, Spring Hills Senior Communities. They were to be taken to a COVID-only nursing home unit in Livingston.

The staff is struggling, with 57 workers showing symptoms of the disease and 25 having tested positive for it. Eighty of the remaining 101 residents are on a “watch list” due to symptoms of the virus, and 12 have tested positive, said the spokeswoman, Hope Horwitz.

“The Atrium in Park Ridge is in desperate need of the National Guard,” said Cathy Collins Mullen, whose mother, Claire Collins, died at the facility on April 6. Her mother, 87, had developed a cough a few days earlier, but the facility refused to test her, Mullen said.

Combat medics from the Army National Guard were deployed to the Paramus Veterans Home last week after reports that 37 veterans had died, a smaller percentage of that home’s overall population of 285.

Gov. Phil Murphy said Thursday that the attorney general will investigate nursing homes where a “disproportionate” number of deaths have occurred during the pandemic. He was responding to reports of the discovery of 17 bodies in a makeshift morgue at the state’s largest long-term care facility, Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center in Andover Township, Sussex County.

“Like the governor and so many other New Jerseyans, I am deeply troubled by the high number of deaths at certain nursing homes,” Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement, “especially those with below-average track records for heath inspections, staffing and quality of care.”

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The epidemic has torn through the state’s 365 nursing homes, killing hundreds of residents, many before they could be tested. It has sickened scores of certified nursing assistants and other health care workers who, in many cases, lacked the masks, gloves and gowns to protect themselves.

As the infection spread from one resident to another and outward into the community, it has added to the burden on struggling hospitals. Scores of nursing home employees have become ill. At least six have died. Those over age 80 and with underlying health conditions — defining characteristics of nursing home residents — are most vulnerable to the disease, which has claimed more than 3,500 lives in New Jersey.

As she waited to learn when her mother would be transferred to Atrium’s nursing home in Livingston, Myrna Bruno despaired of the impact the move would have.

“The last thing we ever want them to think or feel is to be alone and frightened, and this disease has taken that from us,” she said. She last saw her mother, who is 87 and has diabetes and congestive heart failure, on March 10.

“I know she must be afraid,” Bruno said, especially when her caregivers are garbed in protective gear that shows only their eyes. “How can they communicate to her why she’s being moved? She doesn’t watch the news.” If she survives, Bruno said, “will this totally spin her dementia out of control?”

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The Atrium facility on Noyes Drive in Park Ridge has two units: a post-acute facility or nursing home licensed for 210 beds, and an assisted living building licensed for 155. It also has a dementia care unit, called the Rose Garden, with around 20 beds.

In the post-acute care section, 33 people have died since the epidemic began, 19 of them with confirmed COVID-19 infection. Of the remaining 101, four are hospitalized. Twelve were transferred to Atrium Post Acute at Woodbury, in Gloucester County. One died on the way, and another has died since arriving there, Horwitz said.

The assisted living section currently has 66 residents. Four have died of COVID, four are in the hospital, and nine who tested positive have been moved to Woodbury.

While the assisted living area had been relatively unscathed, nurses who distribute medicine to the residents work in both sections, and family members believe that is how it spread from post-acute care to the assisted living area, said Amanda Margolin, whose father lives in assisted living.

Family members say the staff has been overworked, and temporary nurses have been hard-pressed to fill in and distribute medications properly. Only a handful of tests have been available, so staff was tested first.

“They’re not catching it in time” through testing, said Daniel Martel, whose mother is one of the few asymptomatic nursing home residents. “My mom had an aide in her room last week, who came in to get her changed and broke down and started crying. The stress is so unbelievable. They’re working 12- to 14-hour shifts, then going home to families. They desperately need gowns.”

Family members have been trying to gather protective gear for the staff and get health officials to focus on the residents’ needs.

“I don’t think I’ve actually mourned my mom yet,” said Mullen, who last saw her mother on a rainy day through a glass door of the nursing home.

At Mount Carmel Cemetery in Tenafly last week, Mullen watched from the car as her mother’s casket was placed in the grave.