The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina on Wednesday said ongoing testing of its workforce for COVID-19 had not turned up any new cases.
A total of 24 employees had been tested, with two cases confirmed as of this week for infection by the novel coronavirus 2019. Of the remaining workers, 14 have tested negative and eight were still waiting for their results.
“We are currently monitoring 125 employees” who are self-quarantined at home, SRS Operations Management said in a press release. Of those individuals, 53 are showing symptoms typical of the respiratory disease, which can include a bad cough or fever. The other 72 appear to be free of symptoms.
Any other federal or contractor workers at Savannah River who are believed to have either had contact with one of the employees who tested positive or a worker who displayed COVID-19 symptoms, are being told to self-monitor for symptoms but remain at work. This is in keeping with the latest guidance provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the SRS officials.
Critical national security missions performed by DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), such as the Savannah River Tritium Enterprise, are continuing as normal. But DOE’s Office of Environmental Management is doing only “limited” operations at SRS, sufficient to ensure the safety of the public, workers, and environment, according to the press release.
Parsons Corp. is continuing some preparatory work on the Salt Waste Processing Facility, which is targeted to open this spring, although it is too early to say if the schedule will be delayed by COVID-19, a source said.
The Savannah River Site has a total workforce of more than 11,000. Most federal workers at SRS are teleworking these days, as are many contractor employees. Contractors who cannot work remotely due to the nature of their jobs are receiving paid leave for up to 30 days under a harsh weather, safety clause in the DOE agreement.
Across the DOE nuclear complex there have been fewer than 20 cases confirmed, including two at the Sandia National Laboratories in California and New Mexico, one at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, and one at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Energy Department headquarters in Washington, D.C., has three confirmed cases.
