One year after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, more than 5,000 civilian nuclear-weapons workers had caught the viral disease, including 15 who died from it, according to the latest official count from the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The semiautonomous Department of Energy weapons agency counted 5,106 confirmed cases at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor, which made for 64 more cases than the week before — though active cases this week fell by 36, an agency spokesperson at headquarters in Washington said Friday.
The respiratory disease, caused by the novel coronavirus that broke out in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, had killed more than 2.6 million people worldwide at deadline, according to a tracker maintained throughout the pandemic by the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. U.S. fatalities were north of 530,000.
It took about two weeks after the pandemic declaration last year before the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 among the nuclear security workforce.
A linchpin of the U.S. national defense strategy, the NNSA has stayed open throughout the ongoing pandemic. The agency reports only confirmed positive COVID-19 cases, meaning that many more people might be missing work because of mandatory quarantines. That was especially true early in the pandemic.
While most people with a confirmed case of COVID-19 recover, at least according to the Hopkins tracker, the disease is deadlier than recent influenza seasons in the U.S., according to the tracker and data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Moreover, records count only people with a confirmed positive test, meaning cases inevitably go undiagnosed, as some people may not be required to take a test merely because they show symptoms from a mild case — and, like other diseases, even asymptomatic people can spread COVID-19.
At NNSA labs, plants and sites, personnel have to screen themselves for signs of COVID-19 and report symptoms to their workplace. Every site had a major disruption over the past 12 months, but as far as the NNSA has said publicly, those disruptions amount only to a small fraction of the time the U.S. has operated in pandemic mode.
Weapons production sites kept working more or less without pause, and the nuclear weapons labs always had at least a small fraction of personnel on site, even in the early days of the pandemic. Teleworking became widespread, with 50% of the workforce, give or take, remaining remote, even now.
This week at the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and the Y-12 National Security Site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., more than 2,000 personnel — including DOE federal personnel at the sites — had received the first dose of the two-shot COVID-19 vaccine. That’s about 200 more than a week ago. More than 1,174 of those were administered on site at Pantex, with the rest provided off-site, a spokesperson for the site’s prime contract, Consolidated Nuclear Security, said.
“More than 1,500 employees from across the two sites have received their second dose, including 1,135 second doses administered at Pantex,” the spokesperson wrote.
At the Nevada National Security Site, some 1,745 personnel had received a first dose as of Wednesday, up from 1,600 the week before. Some 1,077 had received both doses, up from 800 the week before, a spokesperson for management and operations contractor Mission Support and Test Services said. About half the Nevada workforce was still telecommuting, as of deadline.
National Laboratories Cases
Following are the reported numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases at NNSA nuclear weapons laboratories, along with increases relative to the prior week and the number of people vaccinated, as provided Friday by the labs.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:
Cases: 298 (+15)
Livermore has been designated as a point of distribution for vaccines but had not received any vaccines at deadline, the only lab for which that was the case, as of this writing.
Los Alamos National Laboratory:
Cases: 799 (+6. 735 people who got sick had recovered, as of deadline, while four had died). Los Alamos has started vaccinations, but a spokesperson declined to say how many personnel there had received doses.
Internal tests: 16,343 (+646. A lab spokesperson said Friday these on-site tests have resulted in 252 positive results: five more positive tests than last week).
Teleworking: Roughly 65% of all employees, flat compared with last week.
Sandia National Laboratories:
Effective March 5, 2021, Sandia National Laboratories instituted a one-week lag time reporting COVID data to the public because of “a shift in when our numbers are being updated internally,” a spokesperson said.
Here are the most recent numbers available for Sandia at deadline, which were current as of March 5.
Cases: 766 (+6).
Internal tests: 10,336 (+252).
Sandia started vaccinations the week of Jan. 11, the labs network has since vaccinated 502 people. That’s 100 more than the prior week, according to the spokesperson.
Teleworking: Roughly 45% of all employees, down 5% from the prior week.
