There were 51 confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Friday among personnel working at sites housing National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) operations, up from 26 a week ago and nine the week before that.
Spokespersons for the semiautonomous Department of Energy agency and its sites generally declined to say which cases were at which locations. But with the Kansas City National Security Campus in Missouri confirming its first case this week, there is now at least one confirmed and acknowledged case at each facility, except for the Nevada National Security Site.
The broader Department of Energy, meanwhile, confirmed its first COVID-19 fatality this week.
An agency employee who worked at the Forrestal Building in downtown Washington, D.C., and who had not been to that building since mid-March, died from the viral disease, Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said in an email to DOE personnel this week.
Here are the locations and numbers of known confirmed COVID-19 cases among locations where the NNSA operates, at deadline Friday. The list does not account for all 51 known cases, and may not even account for all the cases at a site.
- Department of Energy headquarters (Forrestal Building), Washington, D.C. – At least five. It wasn’t clear if the employee who died was one of the previously disclosed cases at headquarters. The Energy Department has not identified the offices in which the infected personnel work.
- NNSA Albuquerque – At least one. The NNSA stopped disclosing the number of confirmed cases at this site, colocated with Kirtland Air Force Base. Kirtland had several cases of its own: at least three, according to the local Albuquerque Journal.
- Kansas City National Security Campus, Kansas City, Mo. – At least one. The site confirmed its first case this week.
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, Calif. – three, the same number of cases confirmed last week.
- Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M. – At least one. This person is an employee of the site’s DOE Environmental Management cleanup contractor, N3B Los Alamos.
- Pantex Plant, Amarillo, Texas – At least one. The site confirmed its first case this week.
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, N.M – Eight, up from seven a week ago.
- Savannah River Site, Aiken, S.C. – Four, up from two a week ago.
- Y-12 National Security Complex, Oak Ridge, Tenn. – Several; at least two. The site stopped disclosing its number of confirmed cases.
Meanwhile, as testing catches up with the spread of the disease prior to widespread social distancing, the host cities and counties of NNSA nuclear weapons operations all show more cases of COVID-19 than last week. Here’s a roundup, according to a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Kansas City, Mo. – Kansas City National Security Campus
The city had 257 confirmed cases, with eight deaths, up more than 100 cases from last week, when the city recorded its first fatal cast.
Missouri had more 3,600 confirmed cases overall, about double the roughly 1,800 confirmed cases from last week. Deaths soared to 92 at deadline from 22 deaths last week.
New Mexico – NNSA Albuquerque, Albuquerque; Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque; Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos
New Mexico had almost 1,000 cases at deadline, up sharply from 380 last week. Statewide deaths nearly tripled to 17 from six a week ago. Bernalillo County, near Albuquerque and Sandia, had more than a third of the state’s total cases, and nearly all of its deaths, at 12.
Los Alamos County had four cases this week, up from none a week ago.
Meanwhile, counties surrounding Los Alamos have seen increases, some of them sharp, compared with last week. Sandoval County had 174 cases, nearly six times as many as last week, and recorded its first two deaths. Taos had 15, up from 12 a week ago, Rio Arriba had seven, up from four, and Santa Fe, N.M., south of Los Alamos, had 70 confirmed cases at deadline, up from about 50 a week ago.
Oak Ridge, Tenn., Anderson County – Y-12 National Security Complex
There were at deadline 11 confirmed cases in Anderson County, Tenn., which includes the Y-12 National Security Complex. That is up one from last week. Anderson County recorded its first COVID-19 death this week. Tennessee had more than 4,600 cases statewide, up from 3,200 last week. At deadline, 94 people in Tennessee had died from COVID-19, nearly triple last week’s total of 33 deaths.
Livermore, Calif., Alameda County – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (including Sandia, Calif.)
Livermore, in Alameda, Calif., had more than 710 confirmed cases, more than double the 350 cases confirmed last week. The county death toll rose to 17 from eight.
Nearby San Francisco had nearly 800 confirmed cases, almost double the 430 confirmed cases it reported last week. There were 13 deaths in San Francisco. The death toll in Santa Clara, Calif., some 30 miles south by road from Livermore, was still the state’s second-highest, though now by a distant margin behind Los Angeles. Santa Clara had 47 deaths as of Friday, up from 30 last week.
California, the largest and most populous state in the union, had more than 20,000 confirmed cases at deadline, double last week’s total. That is eight times fewer than New York, which saw cases nearly double to more than 160,000 from 90,000 last week. Deaths in New York were over 7,800, as of this week.
Aiken, S.C., Aiken County – Savannah River Site
Aiken, S.C. had 42 confirmed cases at deadline, up from 18 confirmed cases a week ago. Last week, the county recorded its first, and so far only, COVID-19 fatality.
South Carolina overall had nearly 2,800 confirmed cases, up from 1,300 last week. At deadline, 67 people in South Carolina had died from COVID-19, up from 26 last week.
Amarillo, Texas, including Potter and Randall counties – Pantex Plant
Potter and Randall counties near Amarillo had 110 deaths between them: 58 for Potter and 42 for Randall. Potter was up 42 cases, Randall up 35. Each county had one COVID-19 death, the first either has logged since the outbreak started. Texas had more than 11,000 confirmed cases, which is over double last week’s total of about 4,800. Texas deaths rose to 223 from around 75 last week.
Nevada – Nevada National Security Site
Nevada had more than 2,500 cases at deadline, up about 1,000 from roughly 1,500 cases a week ago. Nevada had logged 86 deaths at deadline, more than twice last week’s confirmed number of fatal cases. There were 10 confirmed cases in Nye County, Nev., near the northwestern perimeter of the former Nevada Test Site, up from four a week ago.
At deadline, nearly 18,000 people had died in the U.S. from COVID-19: over 12,000 more than last week. At deadline, nearly 27,000 people had recovered from their bouts with the disease.
