Hundreds of federal and contract workers at the Department of Energy’s nuclear cleanup wing continue to test positive weekly, but at least for this week, the figures have retreated from their recent peak.
There were 560 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among members of the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM), a spokesperson wrote Thursday in an email, 193 less than last weeks’ record 753.
As recently as December, EM’s weekly case count was in double-digits before the highly contagious omicron variant caused COVID illnesses to surge nationally. The spike prompted DOE to delay the agency’s return-to-workplace plans by a month. DOE now hopes to shift away from maximum telework by mid-March.
Separately, health officials at EM’s most contaminated site said Thursday COVID-positive employees will soon be allowed to return to work if they are symptom-free after five days of isolation.
The policy, effective Jan. 31, reflects a move by the Hanford Site in Washington state to adopt current guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a Thursday memo from HPM Corp., provider of occupational medical services at the complex.
“Testing positive for COVID-19 or being in close contact with an individual who tested positive … does not affect the worker’s capacity to perform work, return to duty or affect fitness for duty, so long as symptoms do not persist past the 5-day isolation or quarantine, or symptoms have improved and the employee has no fever within the past 24 hours without fever-reducing medication,” according to the memo.
In addition, the memo says, symptom-free workers at Hanford are now clear to return to the job after the 5-day isolation without a return-to-work evaluation by the occupational medical contractor. Upon returning to work, the updated policy does call for five days of mask-wearing for any symptom-free people who have not been boosted or fully vaccinated within the past six months.
As of Thursday evening, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed 878,000 lives nationwide, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. More than 210 million Americans, roughly 64% of the population, have been fully vaccinated against the illness. At EM, more than 90% of feds and contractor employees have taken the shots.
