For the second time in three weeks, the number of confirmed active cases of COVID-19 at the Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management worksites is below triple-digits.
There are currently 65 active COVID-19 cases in the Environmental Management (EM) complex, a DOE spokesperson said by email Thursday. It represents a big drop from the 106 recorded last week and still lower than the 76 from two weeks ago.
With the number of cases continuing to decline, many EM properties no longer require fully-vaccinated workers to wear a mask indoors, with the notable exception of the Hanford Site in Washington state.
The top fed at Hanford, site manager Brian Vance, reversed his earlier course and decided to keep the mask mandate in place for now, regardless of whether workers at the old plutonium production complex are fully vaccinated.
After initially saying last week fully-inoculated employees could stop wearing face coverings as soon as May 25, Hanford’s Vance said in a Monday memo that he would postpone implementation of the revised guidance from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
“I have made the decision to postpone implementation of the CDC guidance for our Hanford teammates who are fully vaccinated,” Vance announced. “Please continue to follow the site protocols that have proven very effective in protecting the health and safety of our entire Hanford team over the last year.”
“The additional time is intended to allow federal, state, and local policies and guidelines relative to the revised CDC guidance to stabilize, affording the Hanford leadership team the time to develop a comprehensive and methodical implementation plan,” Vance said. The Hanford boss did not specify how much time this might take.
“Thank you for your patience and continued dedication to our important mission during these challenging and fluid times,” Vance added.
A DOE spokesperson at Hanford declined to comment this week on the change.
While both the federal and state governments have loosened mask restrictions for vaccinated individuals in the past week, sources speculated a May 21 policy statement from the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries might have given Vance reason for pause.
Like the CDC, the Washington agency said employers can now drop the mask mandate for fully-vaccinated workers — if those workers can prove they are vaccinated. Before ditching masking and social distance requirements, employers require verification “by having the worker either sign a document attesting to their status or provide proof of vaccination,” according to the state agency.
“If an employee is not fully vaccinated or their vaccination status is unknown, employers must continue to require masks and social distancing,” the Washington state agency’s guidance went on to say.
Likewise the DOE cleanup operations at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Simi Valley, California is also going by local guidelines, a source said Thursday.
The Savannah River Site in South Carolina, one of the most transparent DOE sites when it comes to coronavirus data, said this morning there are 18 employees currently quarantined with COVID-19, which is down from 22 last week.
Roughly 50% of U.S. adults have now taken at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine, major news outlets reported this week.
As of Thursday night, there have been more than 33.2 million cases of COVID-19 since the coronavirus pandemic started spreading in the United States during early 2020, according to an online tracker run by Johns Hopkins University. The number of U.S. deaths as a result of the illness stands at more than 593,000.
