A day after the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico had mostly reopened Building 823 after a case of COVID-19 among its workforce, the Department of Energy facility had to close down Building 720 after the disease caused by the novel coronavirus 2019 popped up there as well.
Building 720, which houses the Ion Beam Laboratory, will be closed down for a deep cleaning that typically takes about a day. In a statement posted online, Sandia said one person in Building 720 was infected. The lab now is performing contact tracing among that person’s coworkers.
Building 720 also shut down because of COVID-19 this spring.
Meanwhile, Building 823, which houses laboratories including for Sandia’s geosciences program, reopened Tuesday after someone there was confirmed to have COVID-19.
Sandia is able to test its own employees for the respiratory illness. The confirmed cases announced for Albuquerque this week will be on top of the 36 infections the the lab was tracking last week: 28 at Albuquerque, and eight at the lab’s the Livermore, Calif., satellite. That was up from 31 cases from the preceding week, with 24 in Albuquerque and seven in Livermore.
Further south in New Mexico, a seventh case of COVID-19 has been confirmed at DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the Carlsbad Current Argus reported this week.
Nuclear Waste Partnership, DOE’s management prime for the Carlsbad-area transuranic waste disposal facility, confirmed the case among its workforce. Contact tracing and sanitizing were underway, according to the contractor.
Three of the cases at WIPP have involved Nuclear Waste Partnership employees, according to the Current Argus. The other four have been employees of WIPP subcontractors.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state has through the week temporarily restricted access to various facilities for disinfection, while employees who work in those areas are tested for COVID-19.
“A Hanford Site employee is undergoing testing for the coronavirus (COVID-19). Access to affected locations in WTP T-2 in the 200 East area where the employee worked has been restricted, with the exception of authorized janitorial staff, as a precaution until it can be disinfected,” according to a notice on the Hanford website as of Thursday morning. “In accordance with Benton Franklin Health District guidance, personnel assigned to WTP T-2 are not being directed to take any action at this time but should be aware and monitor themselves for symptoms.”