An employee at the Nevada National Security Site died of COVID-19, an agency spokesperson reported this week, marking the second confirmed fatality attributable to the viral disease among civilian nuclear-weapons workers.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) spokesperson declined to identify the individual, or say what job this person did at Nevada.
However, the spokesperson did say that the person “reportedly contracted the virus from a contact outside of work.” The NNSA believes that was also the case with the agency’s first COVID-19 death in mid-July: a worker at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee who was later identified by local news outlets as Mark Easterly, a longtime employee of contractor Bechtel.
As of Friday, active cases of the illness caused by the novel coronavirus 2019 across the entire NNSA complex rose by 30 to 167, the spokesperson said. That makes for a total of 387 confirmed cases at NNSA sites, since the apparent start of the U.S. outbreak in January. Of those people, 218 have recovered, according to the NNSA spokesperson.
The agnency reports only the number of confirmed cases at its Washington, D.C., and Albuquerque, N.M., headquarters, plus the seven other main NNSA sites across the country. The agency does not say how many people are quarantining because of suspected exposure to the disease, nor the overall effect of the COVID-19 response on productivity.
Last week across the NNSA enterprise, active cases rose by eight. On July 31, headquarters reported a slight decrease in active cases for that week. This week, the agency said its data for the week ended July 31 was not current, at the time.
National Labs Cases
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., had 48 confirmed cases of COVID-19 at deadline Friday, up from 45 last week.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico has 46 confirmed cases, up from 35 last week, a spokesperson said Friday. The lab requires random COVID-19 tests for people working on-site, and has so far performed nearly 3,637 tests under the program, up from 3,261 tests last week. A majority of the lab’s roughly 12,700 employees remain off-site, the spokesperson said.
At the Sandia National Laboratories, there were 40 confirmed cases: 31 at Albuquerque, N.M., main campus, and nine in the Livermore, Calif., satellite, a lab spokesperson said Friday. That’s up from 36 cases last week, with 28 in Albuquerque and eight in Livermore.
Sandia also tests employees, but only at their request. The lab had completed nearly 1,980 tests, at deadline, the spokesperson said, up from 1,850 last week. About 60% of Sandia’s roughly 12,500 regular employees were working from home this week, the spokesperson said.
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 represent the number of tests performed, not the number of people tested.
Kansas City, Mo. – Kansas City National Security Campus
Kansas City had more than 4,042 total confirmed cases and 74 deaths, up from almost 3,600 confirmed cases and 64 deaths last week, according to the city health department. There were about 40 more new confirmed cases this week than there were last week.
After closing out July with a big increase in new cases, Missouri had fewer new cases this week than last, registering a cumulative 57,000 confirmed cases and 1,311 total deaths, up from some 49,100 confirmed cases and 1,257 deaths a week ago. That makes for around 2,700 hundred fewer new cases reported this week than there were last week, when the state posted about 3,100 more new cases than it did in the prior week. This week’s decline in the rate of new cases followed a three-week surge during which the state posted 3,000 more new infections every week than it had the week before. The run-up to that spike began in mid-June, according to the Hopkins tracker.
More than 742,000 tests had been performed statewide, at deadline Friday, up from 675,000 a week ago and 600,000 the week before that. Missouri had the lowest testing rate of all the states with a major NNSA site, at just over 12,000 people tested for every 100,000 people in the state.
New Mexico – NNSA Albuquerque, Albuquerque; Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque; Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos
New Mexico had some 21,700 confirmed total cases and 669 deaths at deadline, up from 20,400 cases and 635 total deaths a week ago. There were 900 fewer new cases in the state this week than there were last week, halting a two-week upswing.
Bernalillo County, near Albuquerque and Sandia, had nearly 5,000 confirmed positive cases and 129 deaths at deadline, up from 4,700 4,100 cases and 117 deaths last week. There were roughly 300 fewer new cases this week than there were last week, when case growth was flat at about 600 new cases.
More than 597,000 tests had been performed in New Mexico, rising from about 437,000 a week ago and 490,000 the week before that, according to the state and the Johns Hopkins tracker. New Mexico had the highest testing rate of all the states with a major NNSA site, at almost 28,500 people tested for every 100,000 people in the state.
Los Alamos County had 20 confirmed cases, up two from 18 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 were generally down again this week. Roughly, there were a total of 60 fewer new confirmed infections recorded this week in these counties than there were last week. Taos had a slight week-to-week increase in its number of new cases, but many other neighboring counties near Los Alamos again recorded declines in new cases, week to week.
Sandoval County had 1,117 confirmed cases and 33 deaths, rising from 1,063 confirmed cases and still 33 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 106 confirmed cases and one death. That is up from 91 cases last week, with one death still. Rio Arriba had 312 cases and five deaths, up from 292 cases and four deaths last week. Santa Fe, N.M., south of Los Alamos, had 618 confirmed total cases, up from 550 confirmed a week ago. Santa Fe’s fatal cases held steady at three for a 10th consecutive week.
Oak Ridge, Tenn., Anderson County – Y-12 National Security Complex
There were fewer new cases this week than last in Anderson County, which had some 650 cumulative confirmed infections and six deaths, at deadline. That is up from 550 confirmed cases and five deaths a week ago for the Y-12 National Security Complex’s host county. There were about 75 fewer new cases this week than last in Anderson, halting a mini-spike in which new cases in the county rose by 50 week-over-week for two weeks.
Statewide, there were at deadline more than 116,300 confirmed total cases and 1,186 total deaths, up from 103,000 cases and 1,033 deaths a week ago. That was 2,700 fewer new cases this week than last week, when there were about 500 more new confirmed cases than in the prior week.
About 1.6 million tests had been performed in the state at deadline, up from 1.5 last week and 1.3 the week before, according to the state and the Johns Hopkins tracker. Tennessee had the second-highest testing rate of all the states with a major NNSA site, at almost 24,000 people tested for every 100,000 people in the state.
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 12,900 confirmed cases and 206 total deaths at deadline, up from about 11,100 9,900 confirmed cases and 182 deaths a week ago. The number of new cases this week was about 600 higher than the number of new cases last week, when there were about 100 fewer new cases than in the prior week. The county in mid-July relaxed some of its shelter-in-place rules, making limited provision for outdoor dining at restaurants, outdoor shopping, and the opening of zoos. Religious and cultural ceremonies are permitted outdoors only throughout the state.
In neighboring San Joaquin County, there were more than 12,100 confirmed cases and 192 deaths, up from almost 11,300 cases and 151 deaths the week before. There were around 700 fewer new cases recorded in the county this week than there were last week, marking a second consecutive week in which the number of new cases fell in a seven-day period.
California, the largest and most populous state in the union, has for weeks had the most cumulative confirmed cases in the country. California had more than 541,000 confirmed cases and 10,024 total deaths at deadline, compared with about 493,000 confirmed cases and 9,032 total deaths a week ago. Although it added 42,000 or so new cases this week, the number of new cases at deadline was about flat this week, compared with last week. Last week marked a slowdown for California’s rapid summer upswing. The state had 70,000 fewer new cases last week than it did in the prior week.
There have been more than 8.5 million total tests performed in California, up from about 7.6 million last week and 6.8 million the week before that. California had the third-highest testing rate of all the states with a major NNSA site, at around 21,500 people tested for every 100,000 people in the state.
Aiken, S.C., Aiken County – Savannah River Site
After a month in which the state nearly doubled its case count, South Carolina slowed the spread in the past two weeks. Aiken County had 11 more new cases this week than last week, which at least was better than the 100 new cases the county had last week, compared with the prior week.
Aiken had nearly 1,788 confirmed cases at deadline Friday, with 33 deaths. That’s up from about 1,450 cases and 24 deaths a week ago.
The Savannah River Site itself had another big increase this week, and had confirmed 72 new cases at deadline for a total of 302 verified COVID-19 infections among site workers. There were 25 more new cases recorded this week than last week at the site. Overall, 185 site personnel who previously tested positive had recovered and were cleared to return to work. One person had died from COVID-19 at the multi-disciplinary site, as of last week: an employee of site operations contractor Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. Confirmed cases at the site nearly tripled in July.
Statewide, South Carolina recorded some 9,000 new cases this week, for a cumulative total of more than 96,500 confirmed cases and 1,942 total confirmed deaths, at deadline. That is up from about 87,500 confirmed cases and 1,667 deaths last week.
There were about 2,500 fewer new cases recorded this week than last week, marking a leveling off for South Carolina, which in mid-July endured a huge spike in new cases.
There had been more than 690,000 tests performed in South Carolina as of deadline, up from about 618,000 a week ago and 540,000 the week before that. South Carolina had tested more than 14,500 people for every 100,000 people in the state, the third-lowest rate of testing among states with a major NNSA facility.
Amarillo, Texas, including Potter and Randall counties – Pantex Plant
Although there were more new confirmed cases this week than last in Texas, a state with one of the lowest testing rates of any that hosts an NNSA facility, the Lone Star State appears to have slowed the rapid rise in infections from July. Statewide, there were between 8,000 and 9,000 new cases a day for most of the last two weeks, compared with around 10,000 a day for most the two weeks before those, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas’ cumulative confirmed cases more than doubled in July. Texas has now surpassed New York’s cumulative case numbers.
Combined, Potter and Randall counties had about 47 more new confirmed cases this week than they had last week, when they confirmed about 160 fewer new cases than in the prior week.
At deadline, the two had a combined total of 5,358 cases and 67 deaths at deadline: 3,644 cases and 44 deaths in Potter; 1,714 cases and 23 deaths in Randall, according to the Amarillo Public Health Department.
Last week at this time, the counties had a combined 5,039 cases and 63 deaths: 3,481 cases and 42 deaths for Potter, and 1,558 cases and 21 deaths in Randall.
The two counties had at deadline combined for 44,010 tests performed, up from 38,035 last week and 33,597 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 14 confirmed cases of COVID-19, at deadline, up from 13 a week ago and 10 the week before that.
Texas-wide, there were about 484,000 total confirmed cases and 8,570 total deaths, up dramatically from more than 428,000 cases and 6,442 total deaths last week. That was about 1,000 more new confirmed cases this week than last week, which still keeps Texas in a sort of plateau, after the rapid growth in new cases during the second half of July. Last week, Texas had about 11,800 fewer new cases than it did in the prior week, according to the Hopkins tracker.
Three weeks ago, the number of confirmed new cases statewide rose 19,000 from the prior week, in one of the most dramatic spikes seen in the Lone Star at any point in the pandemic.
There had been about 3.9 million million tests processed in Texas at deadline, growing from 3.6 million last week, and 3.1 million the week before that, according to the state and the Hopkins tracker. Texas had tested just over 13,500 people for every 100,000 people in the state, the second-lowest testing rate for any state with a major NNSA facility.
Nevada – Nevada National Security Site
There were 374 confirmed cases in Nye County, Nev., near the northwestern perimeter of the former Nevada Test Site, up 31 from 343 last week. There were nine fatal cases in Nye County, up from seven last week. There were fewer than half as many new confirmed cases this week than there were last week, in a slowdown from the rapid weekly increase in infections since mid-June. The remote county’s case rate had been relatively stable during the spring lockdowns.
In Las Vegas and surrounding Clark County, which have most of the state’s cases and deaths, there were more than 46,000 cases and 752 deaths, up from around 40,000 cases and 664 total deaths last week. That number of new cases recorded this week was about flat, at 6,000 or so, compared with the number of new cases the week before, when Nevada saw a slight downturn in confirmed new infections, according to the Hopkins tracker.
Statewide, Nevada had more than 53,500 confirmed cases and 900 deaths, up from some 46,800 cases and 801 total deaths a week ago. The number of new cases recorded this week was about 8,200 lower than the number of new cases recorded the week before, which coupled with last week’s downturn in new cases marks the beginning of a plateau. In almost every week of July, the state recorded more new cases than in the week before.
There had been about 500,000 tests performed in Nevada, as of deadline, up from about 371,000 a week ago and 329,800 tests a week before that, according to the state and the Johns Hopkins tracker. Nevada had tested just over 16,000 people for every 100,000 people in the state, the fourth-highest testing rate among states with a major NNSA site.
Nationwide
There were at deadline 160,115 confirmed fatal cases of COVID-19 domestically, up from 152,075 confirmed deaths last week, according to the Hopkins tracker. There were 434 more confirmed fatal cases this week than there were last week.
The United States remains by far the most infected nation on Earth, with around nearly 4.9 million confirmed cases, up around 400,000 from 4.5 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 1.4 million people domestically had recovered from their bouts with COVID-19, making for about 200,000 recoveries, week to week. There had been more than 59.5 million tests performed in the U.S., up from 54.5 million a week ago, and up from 48.5 million the week before that.
