There were 15 fewer active cases of COVID-19 this week than last among National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) employees, marking the first week in July that recoveries outpaced new infections in the complex, according to an agency spokesperson.
The semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency was tracking 114 active cases at deadline Friday, down from 129 a week ago. That makes for a total of 247 confirmed cases, one fatal, reported to agency headquarters since the confirmed start of the U.S. outbreak in January. Infections nationwide are still surging.
National Nuclear Security Administration leadership has said consistently that the agency has yet to miss any milestones because of its COVID-19 response, which has included a surge in telework around the enterprise since mid-March.
“Our numbers are quite low, in terms of COVID cases,” Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the NNSA administrator, said Tuesday during a virtual meeting of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. Most of the agency’s roughly 50,000 contractors and federal employees are still working remotely, though anybody involved with hands-on nuclear-weapons shift work at the major production sites has since the start of the pandemic been required to report to their facility, unless sick or quarantining.
The NNSA’s biggest milestone this decade are still ahead of it: minting the first productions units for the revamped W88 Alt-370 submarine-launched ballistic-missile warhead and the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb, respectively in July 2021 and November 2021; and completing by December 2020 a critical design review to set the cost, schedule, and initial design considerations for a new plutonium-pit plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
“Clearly the COVID thing is still evolving, so I couldn’t possibly tell you today there won’t be additional impacts due to COVID,” Charles Verdon, NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs, said Wednesday on a video conference with the public hosted by the Washington-based Advanced Nuclear Weapons Alliance.
The NNSA does not share the number of people quarantining due to suspected exposure to COVID-19, but that is generally much higher than the number of people known to have positive test results. On Tuesday, Gordon-Hagerty, without quantifying the amount, said “many” of the NNSA workers who caught COVID-19 did so outside the workplace, or during telework. That would, in theory, reduce the quanartines among nuclear-weapon workers inside NNSA fences.
National Labs Cases
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., had 45 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at deadline Friday, up from 41 last week.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has 35 confirmed cases, up from 33 last week, a spokesperson said Friday. The lab requires random COVID-19 tests for people working on-site, and has so far performed nearly 3,261 tests under the program, up from about 3,000 tests last week. About two-thirds of the lab’s roughly 12,700 employees remain off-site, the spokesperson said.
At the Sandia National Laboratories, there were 36 confirmed cases: 28 at the lab network’s Albuquerque, N.M., main campus, and eight in the Livermore, Calif., satellite, a lab spokesperson said Friday. That’s up from 31 cases last week, with 24 in Albuquerque and seven in Livermore.
Sandia also tests employees, but only at their request. The lab had completed more than 1,850 tests, at deadline, the spokesperson said, up from 1,750 last week. About 60% of Sandia’s 12,500 or so regular employees were working from home this week, the spokesperson said.
Cases in NNSA Host Regions
Following is Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor’s weekly digest of confirmed COVID-19 cases, including fatal cases, in the host cities and counties of NNSA nuclear weapons sites.The figures below are the cumulative cases recorded since the first confirmed U.S. instance of COVID-19 in January.
Data come from a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and from select states, counties, and cities, where noted.
The Monitor tracks weekly changes, using the latest data available at deadline, which is sometimes current as of the Thursday before publication.
Testing figures represent the number of tests performed, not the number of people tested.
Kansas City, Mo. – Kansas City National Security Campus
Kansas City had some 3,600 total confirmed cases and 64 deaths, up from almost 3,200 confirmed cases and 54 deaths last week, according to the city health department. The number of new cases was flat this week, compared with last week, at about 400.
The statewide case count surged to close out July, with Missouri registering more than 49,100 confirmed cases and 1,257 total deaths, up from some 38,500 confirmed cases and 1,193 deaths a week ago. There were about 3,100 more new cases reported this week in the state than there were last week, making for a third straight week with 3,000 more new infections than the week before. The spike that began in mid-June still had not abated at deadline, according to the Hopkins tracker.
More than 675,000 tests had been performed statewide, at deadline Friday, up from 600,000 a week ago and 530,000 the week before that.
New Mexico – NNSA Albuquerque, Albuquerque; Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque; Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos
New Mexico had some 20,400 confirmed total cases and 635 deaths at deadline, up from 18,200 cases and 569 total deaths a week ago. For the second week in a row, there were about 150 more new cases than in the prior week.
Bernalillo County, near Albuquerque and Sandia, had nearly 4,700 confirmed positive cases and 117 deaths at deadline, up from 4,100 cases and 99 deaths last week. The number of new cases this week was flat compared with last week, at about 600.
More than 551,000 tests had been performed in New Mexico, rising from about 490,000 a week ago and 437,000 the week before that, according to the state and the Johns Hopkins tracker.
Los Alamos County had 18 confirmed cases, up two from 16 cases last week. From late April to early June, Los Alamos had held steady at six confirmed cases.
New cases in some of the counties surrounding Los Alamos were down a bit this week. There were about 60 fewer new confirmed infections recorded this week than last week. Santa Fe had a slight increase, but many other neighboring counties recorded small declines in new cases, week to week.
Sandoval County had 1,063 confirmed cases and 33 deaths at deadline, up from 972 confirmed cases and 32 deaths a week ago. Sandoval has a worse outbreak than any other county near Los Alamos, but the spread slowed starting in June.
Taos County this week had 91 confirmed cases and one death. That is up from 81 cases last week, with one death still. Rio Arriba had 292 cases and four deaths, up from 261 cases and one death last week. Santa Fe, N.M., south of Los Alamos, had 550 confirmed total cases, up from 462 confirmed a week ago . Santa Fe’s fatal cases held steady at three for a ninth consecutive week.
Oak Ridge, Tenn., Anderson County – Y-12 National Security Complex
Cases shot up in Anderson County, which had 550 cumulative confirmed infections and five deaths, at deadline. That is up from 374 confirmed cases and two deaths a week ago for the county that includes the Y-12 National Security Complex. For the second week in a row, the county confirmed about 50 more new cases than it did the week before.
Statewide, there were at deadline nearly 103,000 confirmed total cases and 1,033 total deaths, up from 87,000 cases and 925 deaths a week ago. Tennessee is in the middle of a surge. There were about 500 more new confirmed cases this week than there were last week, when there were more than 1,500 new cases than in the prior week.
About 1.5 million tests had been performed in the state at deadline, up from 1.3 last week and 1.1 the week before, according to the state and the Johns Hopkins tracker.
Livermore, Calif., Alameda County – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (including Sandia, Calif.)
In Alameda County, near the Livermore lab, there were as of this week more than 11,100 confirmed cases and 182 total deaths at deadline, up from about 9,900 confirmed cases and 173 deaths a week ago. The number of new cases this week was about 100 lower than the number of new cases last week. The county in mid-July relaxed some of its shelter-in-place rules, making limited provision for outdoor dining at restaurants, outdoor shopping, and the opening of zoos. Religious and cultural ceremonies are permitted outdoors only in the county.
In neighboring San Joaquin County, there were more than 11,300 confirmed cases and 151 deaths, up from almost 9,800 cases and 81 deaths the week before. There were around 600 fewer new cases recorded in the county this week than there were last week. In the prior week, there were 1,000 more new cases than in the week before that.
California, the largest and most populous state in the union, surpassed New York in July as the state with the most cumulative confirmed cases. California had almost 493,000 confirmed cases and 9,032 total deaths at deadline, compared with about 431,000 confirmed cases and 8,201 total deaths a week ago. Although it added a chart-topping 62,000 or so new cases this week, the number of new cases at deadline was down nearly 70,000, relative to last week.
There have been almost 7.6 million total tests performed in California, up from about 6.8 million last week and 6 million the week before that.
Aiken, S.C., Aiken County – Savannah River Site
Cases in South Carolina overall continue to rise rapidly, including in Aiken. There were about 100 more new cases reported this week in the county than last week.
Aiken had nearly 1,450 confirmed cases at deadline Friday, with 24 deaths. That’s up from about 1,123 cases and 20 deaths a week ago.
The Savannah River Site has confirmed 230 total cases of COVID-19 by deadline, adding 47 more confirmed cases for the week ended Friday. Overall, 141 site personnel who previously tested positive had recovered and were cleared to return to work. One person had died from COVID-19 at the site, as of last week: an employee of site operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. Confirmed cases at the site nearly tripled in July.
Statewide, South Carolina recorded over 11,000 new verified infections this week, for more than 87,500 cumulative confirmed cases and 1,667 total confirmed deaths. That is up from about 76,000 confirmed cases and 1,334 deaths last week.
There were about 400 fewer new cases recorded this week than last week. In mid-July, South Carolina posted the biggest week-to-week spike in new cases since the outbreak started. In each of the last three weeks, the state confirmed over 10,000 new cases.
There had been more than 690,000 tests performed in South Carolina as of deadline, up from about 618,000 a week ago and 540,000 the week before that.
Amarillo, Texas, including Potter and Randall counties – Pantex Plant
Cases skyrocketed in Texas in July, though at the end of the month the spike was leveling off. The Pantex host counties saw a reflection of this, in microcosm. Statewide, there were between 8,000 and 9,000 new cases a day for most of this week, compared with around 10,000 a day for most of the past two weeks. Texas’ cumulative confirmed cases more than doubled in July.
Combined, Potter and Randall counties had about 160 fewer new confirmed cases this week than they had last week, when they confirmed about 175 more new cases than in the prior week.
At deadline, the two had a combined total of 5,039 cases and 63 deaths at deadline: 3,481 cases and 42 deaths in Potter; 1,558 cases and 21 deaths in Randall, according to the Amarillo Public Health Department.
Last week at this time, the counties had a combined 4,764 cases and 59 deaths: 3,340 cases and 42 deaths for Potter, and 1,424 cases and 17 deaths in Randall.
The two counties had at deadline combined for 38,035 tests performed, up from 33,597 last week and 27,802 the week before that, according to the Amarillo health department.
The Pantex Plant, although within a stone’s throw of the Potter County line, is a federal property surrounded on three sides by the sparsely populated Carson County, which itself had reported 13 confirmed cases of COVID-19, at deadline, up from 10 a week ago.
Texas-wide, there were about 428,200 total confirmed cases and 6,442 total deaths, up dramatically from more than 373,000 cases and 4,622 total deaths last week. Despite confirming another 55,000 or so cases this week, there were around 11,800 fewer new cases recorded this week in the Lone Star State than last week.
Cases are settling down somewhat after a big surge in mid-July. Two weeks ago, the number of confirmed new cases statewide rose 19,000 from the prior week.
There had been about 3.6 million million tests processed in Texas at deadline, up from 3.1 million last week, and 2.7 million the week before that, according to the state and the Hopkins tracker.
Nevada – Nevada National Security Site
There were 343 confirmed cases in Nye County, Nev., near the northwestern perimeter of the former Nevada Test Site, up 73 from 270. There were seven fatal cases in Nye County, flat, compared with last week. The remote county’s count of confirmed cases has more than tripled since mid-June after remaining relatively stable during the spring lockdowns.
In Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County, which have most of the state’s cases and deaths, there were more than 40,000 cases and 664 deaths, up from around 34,000 cases and 580 total deaths last week. That’s about 1,100 fewer new cases this week than there were the week before, according to the Hopkins tracker.
Statewide, Nevada had about 46,800 confirmed cases and 801 deaths, up from some 31,900 cases and 709 total deaths a week ago. The number of new cases recorded this week was about 1,300 lower than the number of new cases recorded the week before. That interrupts what had been a more or less constant week-to-week increase in the number of new cases in July.
There had been almost 371,000 tests performed in Nevada, as of deadline, up from about 329,800 a week ago and 284,000 tests a week before that, according to the state and the Johns Hopkins tracker.
Nationwide
There were at deadline 152,075 confirmed fatal cases of COVID-19 domestically, up from 144,469 confirmed deaths last week, according to the Hopkins tracker.
The United States remains by far the most infected nation on Earth, with around 4.5 million confirmed cases, up around 500,000 from 4 million cases a week ago. The number of new cases nationally was about 100,000 higher in the week now ended than in the prior week.
Since confirmation that the outbreak had hit the U.S., about 1.4 million people domestically had recovered from their bouts with COVID-19, making for about 200,000 recoveries, week-to-week. There had been more than 54.5 million tests performed in the U.S., up from 48.5 million a week ago, and up from 43 million the week before that.
