Counties surrounding the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state, Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee and DOE nuclear cleanup sites in Utah and Nevada no longer have high transmission levels of COVID-19.
That is according to the latest data posted on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website Friday.
When local CDC data shows the community rate is high, DOE requires its sites to reinstitute indoor masking requirements.
The improving local COVID rates showed two of the large counties surrounding the Savannah River Site in South Carolina are no longer high, although a neighboring county in Georgia is still listed as high.
Here is a state-by-state rundown of community rates, according to CDC:
- California: Alameda County. (Livermore National Laboratory) remained high, as did Ventura County (Santa Susana Field Laboratory).
- District of Columbia: (DOE headquarters) was medium.
- Georgia: Richmond County (Savannah River) was high.
- Idaho: Bonneville County, Idaho (Idaho National Laboratory) remained medium.
- Kentucky: Fayette County (Lexington project office) remained high as did McCracken County (Paducah Site).
- Nevada: Nye County (Nevada National Security Site) improved to medium.
- New Mexico: Eddy County (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) medium, likewise Los Alamos County (Los Alamos National Laboratory) remained medium.
- New York: Cattaraugus County (West Valley Demonstration Project) remained low.
- Ohio: Pike County (Portsmouth Site) remained high as did Hamilton County (Cincinnati-based Consolidated Business Center).
- South Carolina: Aiken County improved to medium as did Barnwell County (Savannah River Site).
- Tennessee: Anderson County and Roane County both improved to medium (Oak Ridge Site).
- Utah: Grand County (Moab Tailings) improved to medium.
- Washington: Benton County and Franklin County (Hanford Site) both improved to medium.
The number of active onsite cases of COVID-19 at Office of Environmental Management locations within the past week was 199, which is up 19 from the 180 recorded the prior week, according to a cleanup office spokesperson. The number of onsite cases has been high in recent weeks following the spread of highly-contagious COVID variants.
