The Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina as of Tuesday had confirmed 23 cases of COVID-19 among its workforce.
That is up from 22 reported at the end of last week. Sixteen of those employees have recovered and returned to work, a spokeswoman for the DOE’s SRS operations said by email. Savannah River typically does not release details on individuals.
Last Wednesday, the Savannah River Site began Phase 1 of a gradual four-part process to resume operations that were reduced in late March as the DOE Office of Environmental Management sought to slow the spread of coronavirus infections among its workforce. Coming into this week, there were 32 cases confirmed among DOE’s 16 nuclear cleanup operations, with the second highest being five at the Hanford Site in Washington state.
The 310-square-mile SRS complex employs about 11,000 people; only a fraction of those have been inside the fence for most of the past two months. About 2,000 employees would gradually return to the site during Phase 1, according to DOE.
Most employees either worked remotely or received paid leave during the period. During that time the facility continued to carry out basic oversight of radioactive waste and nuclear material, along with security operations – cyber and physical – along various administrative and recordkeeping tasks.