The nuclear cleanup properties overseen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management had 431 active cases of COVID-19 as of the close of business Wednesday.
The figure, shared in a Thursday email by an Environmental Management (EM) spokesperson, is a jump from the 366 active cases reported by the office one week before Christmas and is exceeded only by the 477 active cases reported the week of Dec. 10.
The high figures come at a time when DOE facilities such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, both in New Mexico, have been reducing on-site staffing in an effort to reduce the spread of coronavirus. Various EM officials have said that most infections are not occurring at job sites, but rather in communities surrounding DOE facilities.
On Wednesday, 12 workers at the Hanford Site in Washington state reported to management they have tested positive, according to a notice posted on a DOE website operated for Hanford by its site services contractor. On Monday, five Hanford employees reported positive tests for COVID-19.
Cumulatively, there have now been more than 550 cases of COVID-19 at Hanford since the pandemic started in the United States in early 2020.
According to an online tracker run by Johns Hopkins University, the United States has already recorded about 19.75 million cases and 342,000 deaths as a result of the virus.
