A COVID-19 fatality at the Sandia National Laboratories brought the confirmed count of fatal cases across the National Nuclear Security Administration complex to 16 during the ongoing pandemic, as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at last got a delivery of vaccines.
This was the second confirmed fatal case at Sandia, a spokesperson at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) headquarters in Washington said Friday in an email. At deadline, the other confirmed fatalities during the pandemic response were: four at the Los Alamos National Laboratory; three at the Nevada National Security Site; one at the Pantex Plant; one at the Savannah River Site; and five at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Otherwise, new confirmed cases at the NNSA have slowed and plateaued in the last several months as the semi autonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency started vaccinating personnel. There were 28 new confirmed cases this week, with more than twice as many recoveries as new infections. The NNSA has logged 5,194 confirmed positive cases across the enterprise since the agency started record keeping last year.
This week, the Livermore lab in California at last received a tranche of vaccines from the federal government and was able to start limited vaccines for people who must come to work on site for priority national security work, a spokesperson for the younger weapons design lab said Friday.
Meanwhile, the production complex also continued to vaccinate personnel this week.
As of this Friday, more than 2,600 personnel — including DOE federal employees — at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., had received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. That’s about 300 more than a week ago. Of those doses, about 1,600 were administered at Pantex, up more than 400 from last week.
About 1,000 Y-12 employees had received doses at deadline. Tennessee has approved the site as a point of distribution for the vaccine, but Y-12 has not yet received any doses to give out on site, the spokesperson said.
About 1,600 employees across the two sites had received a second dose at deadline, said the spokesperson, about flat, compared with last week. Two of the three vaccines available in the U.S. require two doses.
National Laboratories Cases
Following are the reported numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases at NNSA nuclear weapons laboratories, along with increases relative to the prior week and the number of people vaccinated, as provided Friday by the labs.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:
Cases: 312 (+4)
Livermore, which was designated as a point of distribution some time around New Years, started “administering a limited number of vaccines to employees,” a lab spokesperson said this week.
Livermore received about 2,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine “from the Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration in collaboration with the Department of Defense.” Those doses will cover “about one quarter of our population” and Livermore expects to burn through the 2,000 doses in “about two weeks,” the spokesperson wrote in an email Thursday. The spokesperson declined to say whether the vaccine Livermore received requires two doses or one to reach its maximum effectiveness.
“Recipients are determined by federal priorities in support of national security missions,” the Livermore spokesperson said.
Los Alamos National Laboratory:
Cases: 802 (+3. 750 people who got sick had recovered, as of deadline, while four had died). Los Alamos has started vaccinations, but a spokesperson declined to say how many personnel there had received doses.
Internal tests: 17,722 (+150. A lab spokesperson said Friday these on-site tests have resulted in 254 positive results: one more positive test than last week).
Teleworking: Roughly 65% of all employees, flat compared with last week.
Sandia National Laboratories:
In March, Sandia National Laboratories instituted a one-week lag time reporting COVID data to the public because of “a shift in when our numbers are being updated internally,” a spokesperson said.
Here are the most recent numbers available for Sandia at deadline, which were current as of March 19.
Cases: 784 (+18).
Internal tests: 10,587 (+251).
Sandia started vaccinations the week of Jan. 11, the labs network has since given 602 people both doses of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine, the labs spokesperson said. That’s up about 100 compared with the prior week, according to the spokesperson.
Teleworking: Roughly 45% of all employees, flat compared with the prior week.
