Active cases of COVID-19 at civilian nuclear-weapon sites jumped by 34 this week in the largest week-over-week increase the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has acknowledged since it began sharing data about confirmed infections.
That makes for a total of 129 active cases among federal employees and contractors at the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency, and 247 cumulative cases there of the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus since it was confirmed to have reached the U.S. in January.
Of the people at NNSA sites confirmed to have caught COVID-19, 118 have so far recovered and one — reported by local media to be a longtime Bechtel hand who started a new job at the Y-12 National Security Complex in March — has died.
This is the third time in as many weeks that active cases within the NNSA complex have increased by double-digits.
The NNSA, citing operational security, does not share the overall effect of COVID-19 on its workforce. However, the count of people placed in quarantine after suspected exposure to colleagues with confirmed cases of COVID-19 is typically much higher than the number of people with a verified infection.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., had 41 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at deadline Friday, up from 30 last week. About two-thirds of the lab’s roughly 6,300 employees were working off-site to help prevent further infections, a spokesperson said Friday.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has 33 confirmed cases, up from 30 last week, a spokesperson said Friday. The lab requires random COVID-19 tests for people working on-site, and has so far performed nearly 3,000 tests under the program. About two-thirds of the lab’s roughly 12,700 employees are off-site, the spokesperson said.
At the Sandia National Laboratories, there were 31 confirmed cases: 24 at the lab network’s Albuquerque, N.M., main campus, and seven in the Livermore, Calif., satellite, a lab spokesperson said Friday. That’s up from 26 cases last week, with 21 in Albuquerque and four in Livermore. Sandia also tests employees, but only at their request. The lab had completed more than 1,750 tests, at deadline, the spokesperson said. Between 60% and 75% of employees of Sandia’s 12,500 or so regular employees are working from home.
All three of the NNSA’s main production sites, the Kansas City National Security Campus in Missouri, the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., were at normal operations with maximum telework: a somewhat nebulous status defined by NNSA headquarters, and which indicates that anyone who can telework may do so, with management approval. The production sites do not share case numbers, but have been working full shifts since the pandemic began. There have been confirmed cases and quarantines at all three sites.
Energy Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., confirmed two more cases of COVID-19 last week, bringing the cumulative total of confirmed cases in the Washington region to at least 20. The latest pair of infected people had not been in either the Forrestal Building in Washington or the Germantown building in nearby suburban Maryland since March, according to a DOE statement.
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 report the number of aggregate tests, not the number of people tested.
Kansas City, Mo. – Kansas City National Security Campus
The city so far has a total of 2,957 total confirmed cases and 31 deaths, up from 2,184 confirmed cases last week, with no new deaths. The city recorded nearly 500 more new confirmed cases this week than it recorded last week, when it recorded some 150 more confirmed cases than in the prior week.
The statewide case count jumped again this week, with Missouri registering around 38,500 confirmed cases and 1,193 total deaths, up from some 31,000 confirmed cases and 1,123 deaths a week ago. There were almost 3,000 more new cases reported this week in the state than there were last week, when Missouri logged 4,500 more new cases than in the prior week. Cases spiked in the state beginning in June.
More than 600,000 tests had been performed statewide, at deadline Friday, up from 530,000 a week ago and 454,000 the week before that.
Missouri was among the first states to reopen businesses that shuttered for months to slow the spread of COVID-19, and to relax restrictions on the size of gatherings.
New Mexico – NNSA Albuquerque, Albuquerque; Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque; Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos
New Mexico had some 18,200 confirmed total cases and 569 deaths at deadline, up sharply from 16,150 cases and 562 total deaths a week ago. The number of new cases was up by about 150 more this week fron the prior week.
Bernalillo County, near Albuquerque and Sandia, had more than 4,100 confirmed positive cases and 99 deaths at deadline, up from 3,500 cases and 94 deaths last week. There were around 100 fewer new cases confirmed this week than last week.
About 490,000 tests had been performed in New Mexico, rising from about 437,000 a week ago and 390,000 the week before that, according to the state and the Johns Hopkins tracker.
Los Alamos County had 16 confirmed cases, up two from 14 cases last week. From late April to early June, Los Alamos had held steady at six confirmed cases.
Cases in some of the counties surrounding Los Alamos rose again, with some 75 more new cases recorded this week than last week. The increase in the region was almost entirely due to a surge in Rio Arriba County.
Sandoval County had 972 confirmed cases and 32 deaths at deadline, up from 883 confirmed cases and 31 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 81 confirmed cases and one death. That is up from 65 cases last week, with one death still. Rio Arriba had 261 cases and one death, up from 156 cases last week, but with no new deaths. Santa Fe, N.M., south of Los Alamos, had 462 confirmed total cases, up from 389 confirmed a week ago. Santa Fe’s fatal cases held steady at three for an eighth consecutive week.
Oak Ridge, Tenn., Anderson County – Y-12 National Security Complex
There were at deadline 374 confirmed cases and two deaths in Anderson County, Tenn., which includes the Y-12 National Security Complex. That is up from 252 confirmed cases a week ago, with no new deaths. There were about 48 more new confirmed cases this week than there were last week. Cases in the Y-12 host county have skyrocketed since the end of June, when it had around 80 cases.
There were at deadline nearly 87,000 confirmed total cases and 925 total deaths statewide, up from 71,500 cases and 796 deaths a week ago. There were about 1,600 more new confirmed cases this week than there were last week.
About 1.3 million tests had been performed in the state at deadline, up from 1.1 last week and 973,000 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 nearly 9,900 confirmed cases and 173 total deaths at deadline, up from about 8,600 confirmed cases and 154 deaths a week ago. The number of new cases this week was about 100 higher than the number of new cases last week. The county issued standing orders to shelter in place and wear masks in public in mid-June, and those orders remained active at deadline.
In neighboring San Joaquin County, there were more than 9,800 confirmed cases and 81 deaths, up from almost 7,700 cases and 77 deaths the week before. There were around 1,000 more new cases recorded this week than there were last week.
California, the largest and most populous state in the union, surpassed New York this week as the state with the most cumulative confirmed cases. California had almost 431,000 confirmed cases and 8,201 total deaths at deadline, compared with about 300,000 confirmed cases and 7,491 total deaths a week ago. That was about 1,000 more new confirmed cases for the state this week than last week, when it registered 15,000 more new confirmed cases than in the prior week.
There have been almost 6.8 million total tests performed in California, up from about 6 million last week and 5 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. Yet amid the hundreds of new cases in Aiken this week, there were about 100 fewer new cases reported this week in the county than last week.
Aiken had 1,123 confirmed cases at deadline Friday, with 20 deaths. That’s up from about 900 cases and 13 deaths a week ago.
The Savannah River Site had not updated its case county at deadline Friday. Last week, the site confirmed 131 total cases of COVID-19 by deadline, which was 87 higher than the week before. As of last week, 66 site personnel who previously tested positive had recovered. There were 44 new cases recorded last week, 19 more new cases than the prior week. One person had died from COVID-19 at the site, as of last week: an employee of site operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions.
Statewide, South Carolina recorded over 20,000 new verified infections this week, for more than 76,000 cumulative confirmed cases and 1,334 total confirmed deaths. That is up from about 64,100 confirmed cases and 1,070 deaths last week.
There were about 1,500 fewer new cases recorded this week than last week, when South Carolina posted the biggest week-to-week spike in new cases since the outbreak started. In each of the most recent two weeks, the state confirmed over 10,000 new cases.
There had been more than 618,000 tests performed in South Carolina as of deadline, up from about 540,000 a week ago and 463,000 the week before that.
Amarillo, Texas, including Potter and Randall counties – Pantex Plant
Again for most of this week, Texas notched almost 10,000 new cases a day. The Lone Star State has had a runaway case of COVID-19 all July, when cumulative confirmed cases more than doubled, compared with the end of June. Cases also spiked this week in the Pantex-area counties.
Combined, Potter and Randall counties had about 175 more new confirmed cases this week than they had last week, when they confirmed 50 more new cases than in the prior week.
At deadline, the two had a combined total of 4,764 cases and 59 deaths at deadline: 3,340 cases and 42 deaths in Potter; 1,424 cases and 17 deaths in Randall, according to the Amarillo Public Health Department.
Last week at this time, the counties had a combined 4,327 cases and 46 deaths: 3,038 cases and 39 deaths for Potter, and 1,208 cases and seven deaths in Randall.
The two counties had at deadline combined for 33,597 tests performed, up from 27,802 last week and 26,661 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 10 confirmed cases of COVID-19, at deadline. That’s still flat, week to week.
Texas-wide, there were about 373,000 total confirmed cases and 4,622 total deaths, up dramatically from more than 306,000 cases and 3,705 total deaths last week. Although Texas posted more than 65,000 new confirmed cases for the second week in a row, there were actually around 2,500 fewer new cases recorded this week than last week — when the state confirmed 19,000 more cases than the week before that.
There had been about 3.1 million million tests processed in Texas at deadline, up from 2.7 million last week, and 2.3 million the week before that, according to the state and the Hopkins tracker.
Nevada – Nevada National Security Site
There were 270 confirmed cases in Nye County, Nev., near the northwestern perimeter of the former Nevada Test Site, up 58 from 212. Nye County had seven fatal cases confirmed this week, up from three fatal cases. The remote county’s count of confirmed cases, which had held flat and steady throughout the spring lockdowns, has shot up in July. Since this time last month, the count has more than tripled.
In Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County, which have most of the state’s cases and deaths, there were more than 34,000 cases and 580 deaths, up from around 26,900 cases and 507 total deaths last week. That’s about 800 more new cases this week than there were the week before, according to the Hopkins tracker.
Statewide, Nevada had about 40,000 confirmed cases and 709 deaths, up from some 31,900 cases and 626 total deaths a week ago. The number of new cases recorded this week was about 1,100 higher than the number of new cases recorded the week before, marking yet another week in which there were more new cases confirmed than in the week before. The state has seen consistently steep increases in new cases all throughout 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 144,469 confirmed fatal cases of COVID-19 domestically, up from 138,543 confirmed deaths last week, according to the Hopkins tracker.
The United States remains by far the most infected nation on Earth, with more than 4 million confirmed cases, up around 400,000 from about 3.6 million cases a week ago. The number of new cases nationally was about 100,000 lower in the week now ended than in the prior week.
Since confirmation that the outbreak had hit the U.S., about 1.2 million people domestically had recovered from their bouts with COVID-19, making for about 20,000 recoveries, week-to-week. There had been more than 48.5 million tests performed in the U.S., up from 43 million a week ago, and up from 38 million the week before that.
