There were about as many active COVID-19 across the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) nationwide complex this week as last week, with most sites still admitting only personnel working on top-priority weapons missions.
At deadline Friday, agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., said a total of 65 people had tested positive for infection by novel coronavirus 2019 across the nuclear security enterprise since the first confirmed domestic case of the viral disease in late January.
However, active cases in the NNSA complex dipped from 51 last week to 40 on Friday, a spokesperson told Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
Of the 69 people confirmed to have caught COVID-19 across the agency’s network of labs, production sites, and the Nevada National Security Site, 29 have recovered and non have died.
NNSA sites do not always require employees to report positive test results, though all require anyone experiencing symptoms of the respiratory disease to quarantine at home.
Although NNSA labs and sites have hunkered down and sent people home to telework in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19, maintenance and modernization of nuclear weapons across the complex never really stopped. Some faciliites are even bringing people back to work, albeit in small numbers.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California have been slowly expanding the number of people allowed on site, though more people than not are still teleworking at the sites.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City, Mo., National Security Complex this week started bringing more workers back to manufacture non-nuclear parts of nuclear weapons. A spokesperson said the Kansas City facility is taking employees’ temperatures to screen for signs of the disease, and is attempting to protect personnel by erecting plastic barriers in some workspaces and offering personal protective equipment where available.
The Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, are now in reduced mission critical operations, meaning anyone who can is teleworking. Those sites nominally planned to stay in that posture at least for two more weeks before beginning a two-week ramp-up, a spokesperson said. However, that plan could change rapidly, if COVID-19 spreads further among the workforce.
Meanwhile, the host regions of nearly all the NNSA sites generally have more cases of COVID-19 this week than they did last week — a trend that has continued more or less uninterrupted since the outbreak hit the U.S.
Here is a digest of confirmed COVID-19 cases, including fatal cases, in the host cities and counties of NNSA nuclear weapons sites.
The figures here are the cumulative total cases recorded since the first confirmed U.S. case of COVID-19 in January. Data come from a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and from data maintained by states, counties and cities, where noted. The Monitor tracks weekly changes from one Friday to the next.
Kansas City, Mo. – Kansas City National Security Campus
The city so far has a total of 461 total confirmed cases and 14 deaths, up from 371 confirmed cases and 12 deaths last week. Missouri had more than 6,500 cases and 253 total deaths statewide, up from 5,000 confirmed cases and 166 deaths a week ago. Almost 65,000 people had been tested in Missouri as of Friday, up from about 50,000 people a week ago.
New Mexico – NNSA Albuquerque, Albuquerque; Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque; Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos
New Mexico had about 2,400 confirmed total cases and 78 deaths at deadline, up from 1,500 cases and 36 total deaths a week ago. Bernalillo County, near Albuquerque and Sandia, had more than 25% of the state’s total cases, and more than a third of its total deaths, at 31. More than 41,000 people had been tested in New Mexico, at deadline, up from about 33,000 people a week ago.
Sandia this week was authorized to start processing COVID-19 tests for the general public. The lab has been able to test its own employees in Albuquerque, and Livermore, Calif., for about two weeks, though it would not say how many employee tests it had done. Sandia contracts its sample collection out to AB Staffing Solutions of Gilbert, Ariz., and analyzes the tests at its own labs in Albuquerque.
Los Alamos County held steady week over week at six total confirmed cases this week and no deaths.
Cases in the counties surrounding Los Alamos rose this week, though by smaller numbers than in previous weeks. Sandoval County had 345 confirmed cases and eight deaths at deadline, up from 262 confirmed cases and four deaths a week ago. The county had been hard hit, registering a sixfold increase last week, compared with the week before.
Taos County had 17 confirmed cases and no deaths this week, up from 15 cases and no deaths last week. Rio Arriba had 11 cases, up from 10 cases last week. Santa Fe, N.M., south of Los Alamos, had 96 confirmed total cases, up from 78 confirmed a week ago. Nobody had died from COVID-19 in Santa Fe, at deadline.
Oak Ridge, Tenn., Anderson County – Y-12 National Security Complex
There were at deadline 23 confirmed cases and one death in Anderson County, Tenn., which includes the Y-12 National Security Complex. That is up from 16 confirmed cases a week ago, with no new deaths.
COVID-19 infections in Tennessee rose by about the same amount this week as last, spiking to almost 8,300 confirmed total cases and 171 total deaths from 6,400 cases and 136 deaths a week ago. About 123,000 people in Tennessee had been tested at deadline, up from 81,000 people last week.
This week, the Anderson County Department of Health said it would offer free COVID-19 testing from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time Sunday at Roane State Community College’s Oak Ridge campus, 701 Briarcliff Ave.
Livermore, Calif., Alameda County – Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (including Sandia, Calif.)
There were more new cases and deaths nearby the Livermore lab, in Alameda County this week than last. Alameda had more than 1,350 confirmed cases and 46 total deaths at deadline, up from 960 confirmed cases and 36 deaths a week ago. Last week, the lab’s host county saw fewer new cases and deaths than the week before.
Nearby San Francisco had more than 1,300 confirmed cases and 21 total deaths, up from 1,000 confirmed cases and 17 deaths a week ago. Los Angeles had the most deaths in California: almost 800 at deadline, roughly double last week’s total of about 400. The death toll in Santa Clara, Calif., some 30 miles south by road from Livermore, was 95 as of Friday, the fourth-highest of any recorded metropolitan area in the state, and up from 65 deaths a week ago.
California, the largest and most populous state in the union, had more than 39,500 confirmed cases and more than 1,500 total deaths at deadline, compared with 27,000 confirmed cases a week ago.
That is still less than 15% of New York’s confirmed cases.
The Empire State remains the U.S. epicenter, with around 270,000 confirmed cases and almost 21,000 confirmed total deaths at deadline. That compares with 215,000 confirmed cases and more than 14,000 deaths a week ago: a significantly slower rate of new cases and deaths, compared with last week’s jump, when the death count nearly doubled.
Aiken, S.C., Aiken County – Savannah River Site
Aiken, S.C., had about 84 confirmed cases at deadline Friday, with five total deaths. That’s up from 60 cases and three deaths a week ago.
South Carolina overall had almost 5,000 confirmed cases and 150 total confirmed deaths this week, up from about 3,600 confirmed cases and 106 deaths last week. Some 44,500 people had been tested in South Carolina as of Friday, up from about 35,000 people a week ago.
Amarillo, Texas, including Potter and Randall counties – Pantex Plant
Potter and Randall counties near Amarillo had by deadline logged 358 cases between them: 221 for Potter and 137 for Randall. That’s a sharp rise for Pantex’s neighbors, up from a combined 152 cases a week ago, when Potter had 79 and Randall had 73. Potter was up 142 cases, Randall up 64. Potter County had five COVID-19-related deaths, while Randall County had three. Each county had two total COVID-19 deaths last week. The data for the counties comes from the city of Amarillo’s Public Health department.
Texas had more than 23,500 cases and 604 total deaths this week, up from about 16,500 cases and 397 deaths. More than 225,000 people had been tested in Texas as of Friday, half again as many as last week, when 150,000 had been tested.
Nevada – Nevada National Security Site
Nevada had more than 4,200 cases at deadline, with 195 total deaths, up from 3,200 cases 137 total deaths a week ago.There were more than 30 confirmed cases in Nye County, Nev., near the northwestern perimeter of the former Nevada Test Site, roughly 10 more than a week ago. Nobody had died of COVID-19 in Nye County at deadline.
In Las Vegas, and surrounding Clark County, which have most of the state’s cases and deaths, there were more than 3,300 cases and 163 total deaths, up from 2,500 cases and 115 total deaths last week. Almost 35,000 people had been tested in Nevada, as of Friday, up from about 27,000 people a week ago.
At deadline, more than 50,000 people had died in the U.S. from COVID-19: over 15,000 more than last week. At deadline, more than 80,000 people had recovered from their bouts with the disease. More than 4.5 million people have been tested for COVID-19, domestically.
Editor’s note, 05/01/2020, 2:03 p.m. Eastern time. The story was corrected to show that the NNSA was tracking 65 cumulative cases of COVID-19. An agency spokesperson said the previously reported number of cases was incorrect due to an administrative error at the agency.
