A pair of buildings at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico mostly reopened Tuesday after deep cleanings that followed one confirmed case of COVID-19 among regular facilities users.
The one-day closure affected Building 983, which hosts the Z Pulsed Power Facility high-energy density physics operation, and Building MO321, an office trailer.
Building 983’s High Bay and Marx Annex had not returned to their regular work schedules as of Tuesday, a Sandia spokesperson said.
As with other National Nuclear Security Administration sites, the standard procedure after a confirmed COVID-19 case at Sandia involves sending the infected home, cleaning surfaces and work spaces at the infected person’s job site, and figuring out who the confirmed infected person might have exposed in the days leading up to the positive test.
Those with suspected exposure will have to quarantine for around two weeks.
The Z-Machine, like other high-energy density physics facilities, subjects small targets made of various materials to extremes of temperature and pressure similar to the early stages of a nuclear detonation. The operations help the National Nuclear Security Administration verify the potency and functionality of aging nuclear-weapon components and materials without resorting to nuclear-explosive tests.
Like the rest of the country, New Mexico is dealing with an upswing in cases of infection by the novel coronavirus 2019 that broke out in China last year. Sandia is particulraly especially hard-pressed, with its main campus located in Albuquerque, N.M., in the heart of the state’s most infected county, Bernalillo.
As of last week, Sandia had recorded 26 cumulative confirmed cases of COVID-19, since the outbreak was confirmed in January to have reached the U.S. Sandia’s total covers 21 in Albuquerque and five in the lab complex’s Livermore, Calif., satellite campus
