The Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state saw four more employees test positive for the coronavirus Saturday.
That is according to an employee advisory posted on the emergency operations website, for Hanford, currently managed by site services contractor Mission Support Alliance.
The unofficial total of cases is now 228 based largely upon bulletins posted daily on the website.
Meanwhile, the number of infections continues to mushroom worldwide and nationally, with the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) being no exception. An EM spokesperson last week put the number of active cases within DOE’s nuclear cleanup complex at 273, or nearly double the already-high figure of 141 reported the prior week.
In addition, a New Mexico Environment Department official said last week that a possible COVID-19-related death at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and the rising number of infections there, factored in the state’s decision not to reauthorize a temporary work authorization for a new underground utility shaft the mine needs to ramp up waste emplacement.
There had been nearly 12.5 million confirmed cases and 256,000 deaths in the United States as of Monday morning, according to a COVID-19 dashboard operated by Johns Hopkins University.
