SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Authorities on Thursday considered evacuating residents from a California nursing home after 156 people tested positive for the coronavirus and 10 died in the largest publicly reported outbreak so far in a California nursing home.

The Central Valley care home is one of many “hot spots” still popping up around the state, Gov. Gavin Newsom said as he warned of the continued need for vigilance, even as the state begins to consider easing restrictive measures aimed at preventing the spread of the virus.

“We’re still seeing hot spots throughout the state," Newsom said at his daily briefing. He cited an outbreak of 51 cases at a food distribution facility in the San Joaquin Valley as another example.

More than 950 people have died from the virus in California, according to Johns Hopkins University. Los Angeles County, which has nearly half the statewide deaths, on Thursday reported 55 new deaths, its highest daily death toll by far.

“It really reflects the devastating power of COVID-19,” said the county's public health director, Barbara Ferrer.

At the Redwood Springs Healthcare Center in Visalia, 106 residents and 50 staff members tested positive for the virus and 10 people have died, nursing home spokesman Dave Oates said. All patients and staff were being tested and the 176-bed facility in the agricultural Central Valley is receiving staffing support from the county, state and hospitals, said administrator Anita Hubbard.

The county could evacuate the home as an “absolute worst-case scenario," Tim Lutz, director of the Tulare County Health and Human Services Agency, told the Visalia Times Delta.

The California Department of Public Health could not immediately answer questions Thursday about the total number of outbreaks across nursing facilities in the state.

The Visalia home is the latest skilled nursing facility to face an outbreak. The homes are especially vulnerable to the virus because many residents are elderly with existing health conditions and they live in close proximity to each other.

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death.

U.S. health officials are under increasing pressure to publicly track coronavirus infections and deaths in nursing homes amid criticism they have not been transparent about the scope of outbreaks across the country that have already claimed thousands of lives.

Though the federal government has not released a count of its own, an Associated Press tally from media reports and state health departments indicates at least 5,346 deaths have been linked to coronavirus in nursing homes and long-term care facilities nationwide as of Thursday.

Thirteen people died in an outbreak that infected nearly 70 residents and staff at Gateway Care and Rehabilitation Center in Hayward in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Alameda County district attorney has launched a criminal investigation into patient deaths at the facility, which in the past has been cited by state regulators for lacking sufficient staff.

After virus cases were discovered at Magnolia Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Riverside, so many staff members failed to show up for work that county officials evacuated residents. In Los Angeles County, the state's largest, at least 133 people who lived in nursing homes or skilled nursing facilities have died from the virus.

Newsom previously said the state would train and deploy 600 nurses to support compliance with COVID-19 guidance at the state’s nearly 8,700 skilled nursing and residential care facilities. Visits to the facilities already have been sharply restricted.

Doug Bloch, a spokesman for the Teamsters union, said Newsom was referring to a Safeway distribution facility that supplies Northern California, parts of Nevada and Hawaii when he cited an outbreak with 51 confirmed cases. At least one worker at the facility has died from coronavirus, and more workers have tested positive, though he could not verify the number Newsom cited.

Bloch said inspectors from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health visited the facility Thursday.

Also Thursday, Newsom signed an executive order requiring large farms and agriculture businesses, as well as grocery stores and fast-food chains to provide two weeks of paid sick leave to full-time workers who are considered essential during the virus, on top of whatever leave they already have.

“We don't want you going to work if you’re sick,” Newsom said.

It followed new guidance from his administration, more than a month into the pandemic, for grocery stores to protect their employees' health and safety.

Despite the climbing number of deaths, Newsom said California is seeing signs of improvement.

“You have successfully bent, and arguably flattened, the curve in the state of California,” he said. But, “we continue to need to maintain our vigilance.”

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Associated Press writers Amy Taxin in Santa Ana and John Antczak in Los Angeles contributed to this story.