Employees placed on unpaid leave after receiving religious exemptions to Los Alamos National Laboratory’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate were cleared to return to work this week after the lab declared a return to normal operations, an internal memo shows.
“As of this spring, case rates have abated considerably, almost 100% of staff are vaccinated, and we have much better tools to treat and test for the disease,” the April 25 memo from lab Director Thomas Mason reads. “As a result the Laboratory will return to Normal Operations on May 2, 2022.”
There are, however, still some strict COVID policies in place for the unvaccinated.
Employees who are not vaccinated must submit a negative COVID test no more than 72 hours before entering the lab and weekly thereafter, according to Mason’s memo. The unvaccinated must also wear face masks on lab property and are barred from business travel, Mason said.
If transmission levels in New Mexico increase, even unvaccinated employees who exclusively telework may be required to submit to weekly COVID tests, the memo says.
That demonstrates that Los Alamos, which has some of the strictest COVID-19 policies in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) enterprise, planned to maintain a record of teleworking employees who catch COVID even as the Department of Energy and the NNSA have ceased publicly reporting confirmed COVID cases among employees and contractors who exclusively telework.
As for travel, “[i]n-person meetings and conferences are essential to our mission,” Mason wrote. “Normal domestic travel processes are in place to enable work travel for vaccinated employees. Foreign travel approvals continue to be handled according to NNSA’s guidance and the Laboratory’s COVID-19 policy, which requires director-level approval. I am working with NNSA colleagues to reinstate our normal foreign travel approval process.”
In 2021, Los Alamos mandated COVID-19 vaccination for all employees. Those that refused were offered three choices: quit, receive a medical exemption that would be treated like a disability claim or receive a religious exemption. Anyone who got a religious exemption was placed on unpaid leave.
