The Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina will maintain precautions for “high” community rates for transmission of COVID-19, a DOE spokesperson said Monday.
Savannah River DOE managers made the decision after learning the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control failed to update its COVID case numbers last week with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to the state health agency website, “they do not intend to update them until this week,” the DOE spokesperson said. “We are continuing to assume ‘high’ on site until we get accurate data,” the spokesperson said.
The DOE requires sites with high local COVID rates to continue pandemic precautions such as indoor mask-wearing.
The CDC website Friday showed Aiken County S.C., and Barnwell County, S.C., had fallen to medium COVID levels although nearby Richmond County, Ga., was still high.
Savannah River officials were hoping to be in the same boat as Hanford, which informed staff in a Friday memo that masks are not required this week due to the local rate improving to the medium category.
