Two more people at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to late-Monday post on an official Hanford website.
In addition, 12 more workers at the Hanford Site are undergoing testing for COVID-19, according to a notice posted on a Hanford website that provides daily updates on work status at the former plutonium production complex.
The notice did not include any additional details on the workers such as age, sex, whether they were experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, or if they work for DOE or one of the site’s many contractors. The two latest infections bring Hanford’s informal total to 82 cases, based largely on notices posted over time to the Hanford website.
As of Thursday, there were 74 active cases of COVID-19 within the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management’s nuclear cleanup properties, up from 70 the week before, according to an agency spokesperson.
The Hanford Site is now in Phase 2, the next-to-last-stage in the Department of Energy’s remobilization program designed to return nuclear cleanup operations to nearly pre-pandemic levels.
A couple of weeks ago, a Hanford official said during an advisory board meeting that roughly 6,000 of the complex’s 11,000 employees are back working onsite, with most others continuing to telecommute.
