The stories about the Kirkland Life Care Center are harrowing and, in the worst-case scenarios, a preview of things to come.

As of late last week, 26 residents of the Seattle-area nursing home had died because of the coronavirus . Twenty-one current residents had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus that first showed up in China late last year, with test results for another dozen pending.

Dozens of staff were home, away from work, in many cases because they had tested positive. That created severe shortages. At one point last week, administrators said they had just three full-time workers to care for the facility, which has more than 100 beds.

As the cases and fatalities mounted, the nursing home started restricting access, even to family members, as an emergency precaution to stop the transmission of germs into and out of the facility. That forced family members to communicate with residents through windows, or not at all.

I just feel ill that my mom could be dying alone, a relative of one resident told The New York Times . Its pure panic and I can do nothing. I have no control.

The federal government has dispatched teams of personnel to Kirkland, both to provide caregiving staff and to investigate why the infection spread as quickly as it did. Meanwhile, the Trump administration, working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has issued nationwide guidelines for nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

These guidelines call for the kinds of practices Kirkland eventually adopted, including expert-recommended, if difficult , restrictions on visitors and a new emphasis on infection control. The American Health Care Association, the trade group that represents nursing homes, has issued its own, similar set of guidelines and said it supports the government efforts.

The most important thing right now is getting the message to all providers, by any means, about what they can do to prepare and respond, the AHCA told HuffPost in an official statement.

The hope is that these measures will prevent more outbreaks like the one at Kirkland or, at least, contain outbreaks if they happen.

But it will not be easy.

Infection control is a long-standing , well-documented problem in nursing homes and similar facilities. They are chronically understaffed, even though they generate significant profits for some private-equity firms. Government oversight has always been lax although, notably, the Trump administration has for the last few years been taking steps to weaken it even more.

Truly fixing these problems will take time, because they were literally decades in the making. Long-term care is yet another example of the U.S. failing some of its most vulnerable citizens, and the issue is only now starting to get the attention it deserves in American politics.

In the meantime, the well-being of the people in long-term care facilities, along with the people who care for them, depends heavily on efforts to mitigate the pandemics spread across the U.S. And nobody yet knows how well that effort will go.

I dont want to alarm people, but I am really worried, Richard Mollot , executive director of the Long-Term Care Community Coalition , told HuffPost. Ive never felt as unnerved as I do now.

High-Risk Patients In High-Risk Settings

Residents of long-term care facilities are elderly or have serious health problems, or both, which means they are the groups most at risk of severe complications from COVID-19. They usually have cognitive or physical limitations, as well, and in some cases those limitations are severe.

Many cannot feed or dress themselves, or suffer from incontinence and are unable to handle their own hygiene. They depend on caregivers sometimes around-the-clock and, especially if they suffer from dementia, they may resist or actively fight as those caregivers try to help them.