Seven more workers informed management at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state on Saturday they have tested positive for COVID-19.
The latest confirmed coronavirus infections were reported in a Saturday afternoon post on Hanford’s emergency operations website, which is run by site services contractor Mission Support Alliance.
That brings the confirmed total of COVID-19 cases at the former plutonium production complex to 223, based upon recent bulletins posted daily on the website.
It is also the latest reminder that the 16 nuclear cleanup properties managed by the DOE Office of Environmental Management (EM) are sharing in the nation’s surging pandemic. As of Thursday, there were 194 active cases of the coronavirus within the cleanup complex, according to an EM spokesperson. That’s up from 64 active cases in early October.
Over the weekend, governors of Washington and New Mexico issued emergency orders, instructing people to stay home and restricting operation of businesses deemed non-essential.
On Friday, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) imposed an order telling most residents to stay at home except for trips to secure food, medical and other basic needs starting today through Nov. 30. Most non-essential businesses are instructed to close. A DOE spokesperson for Los Alamos National Laboratory said in a Friday email that the facility is considered essential and not covered by the order. A similar assessment was offered early Monday by a spokesperson for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
The New Mexico order specifies that it exempts “[l]aboratories and defense and national security-related operations supporting the United States government, a contractor to the United States government, or any federal entity.”
Meanwhile, a similar order issued Sunday by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) takes effect Nov. 17 and runs through Dec. 14. Washington is seeing a surge in daily case counts, with over 2,000 cases a day over the weekend and average cases in the state doubling over the past two weeks, according to the Inslee news release.
As of Monday morning, there have been 11 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States and 246,000 deaths as a result.
