The National Nuclear Security Administration had about 1,000 active, confirmed COVID-19 cases across its national network for most of December and closed out 2020 with about 3,500 cumulative cases, of which seven were fatal.
That is according to data provided Friday by a spokesperson for the semi-autonomous Department of Energy nuclear-weapons agency. Including the first week of 2021, the agency has confirmed some 3,800 cases, cumulatively.
Like the rest of the country, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) saw COVID cases among its workforce soar beginning in late November. In a thin silver lining, the rate of growth in new cases at the agency was more or less stable over the holiday season, and nobody else in the nuclear security enterprise died from complications associated with the disease.
Nationwide, cases are still soaring as three different vaccines for the viral disease caused by the novel coronavirus started to trickle out, though not in numbers sufficient to prevent the rapid transmission of the illness.
As they have since the early months of the pandemic, NNSA’s production sites continued their usual three shifts, with anybody needed for hands-on weapons work required to report on site.
At the national labs, most of the workforce remains remote. NNSA contractors are still allowed to claim reimbursement under the summer COVID-19 bailout bill, the CARES Act, for people who can’t come to work or do their jobs remotely.
National Laboratories Cases
Following are the reported numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases at NNSA nuclear weapons laboratories, and increases relative to the prior week, as provided Friday by the labs.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:
Cases: 193 (+32). Livermore is the only lab that does not test its own employees.
Los Alamos National Laboratory:
Cases: 590 (+61; 441 people who got sick recovered, while two died).
Internal tests: 12,002 (+744; a lab spokesperson said Friday these on-site tests have resulted in 182 positive results).
Teleworking: Roughly 80% of all employees. Los Alamos started scaling back on-site operations in November, when a nationwide surge caused cases in New Mexico to soar.
Sandia National Laboratories:
Cases: 582 (+73).
Internal tests: 11,591 (+744; a lab spokesperson said Friday these on-site tests have resulted in 155 positive results).
Teleworking: Roughly 75% of all employees.
