Families of the patients have described the situation surrounding the nursing home — identified as Life Care Center of Kirkland — as "sort of like a movie about an epidemic in a little town, and they don't know how to handle the situation."

The family members, speaking to CBS News, expressed their concern that while their loved ones are currently being isolated in their rooms and their temperatures monitored daily, those who are showing symptoms will not be tested or hospitalized until they become critically ill. Carmen Gray, whose mother Susan Haley is under quarantine at the nursing home, said that she had asked to get her mother tested for the virus but that the center told her that her mother "did not meet the criteria at this time."

"They're being held hostage in a petri dish," she said.