A majority of staff at the nation’s top regulator for civilian nuclear power are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, an agency spokesperson said this week.
Roughly 65%, or around 1,859, of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 2,860 employees have “certified that they are fully vaccinated,” a spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor via email Tuesday.
Despite that statistic, NRC staff won’t have a full in-person return to its offices until Nov. 7, the spokesperson said. That would apply to all agency offices: its Rockville, Md. headquarters, four regional offices and its technical training center.
The commission settled on the November date in August, after scrapping a return to the office planned for Sept. 26. In July, the agency lifted a 25% occupancy limit in all of its buildings as “a first step” towards full re-entry.
Meanwhile, the agency said in September it was remaining on “maximum telework” as the Joe Biden administration instituted a federal vaccine mandate. An NRC spokesperson told the Monitor at the time that it would continue to follow guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
“[A]ny employee currently entering an NRC facility is required to be masked and to wear the mask as outlined in the CDC guidance,” the spokesperson said at the time. The commission is still taking other precautions like regular sanitization and social distancing at NRC’s Rockville, Md. headquarters as well as its four regional offices across the country.
