Twelve more employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state reported to management that they have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to an online notice posted Friday.
The latest batch of positive tests showed up on the employee alerts section of a DOE emergency operations website at Hanford operated by the site services contractor, Mission Support Alliance.
That brings the unofficial count of COVID-19 cases at the former plutonium production site to more than 250, based mostly on bulletins posted on the website. About 11,000 federal and contractor staff are employed at the site and officials have previously said about 40% of them are currently telecommuting in an effort to slow the spread of the virus.
As of last Thursday, the 16 nuclear cleanup sites overseen by the DOE Office of Environmental Management had 282 active cases where individuals have not yet recovered, according to a spokesperson. The 282 figure is not far below the nuclear office’s previous high of 298 active cases, reported during Thanksgiving week.
As of Monday morning, there have been 14.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States and 282,000 deaths, according to a virus dashboard run by Johns Hopkins University.