Sandia National Laboratories has been cleared to start processing COVID-19 tests for the general public, according to U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.).
The nuclear-weapon engineering lab started testing its own employees for the viral disease on April 7 at its Albuquerque, N.M., headquarters, and on April 15 at its Livermore, Calif., campus.
On Tuesday, according to a press release from Heinrich, the lab network received permission from the Department of Energy to begin processing tests for the general public.
Heinrich said Sandia’s decision to start processing tests “will allow for hundreds of additional tests to be processed in coordination with the New Mexico Department of Health and DOE.”
It was not clear what level of throughput Sandia could achieve, or how long it would take the lab to ramp up to maximum capacity. New Mexico, with a population of more than 2 million, so has far tested more than 41,000 people, in total. Last week, the state had 60 testing sites in all 33 of its counties and could do about 3,500 tests a day, New Mexico Secretary of Health Kathyleen Kunkel said at the time.
The tests Sandia ran for its own workforce were done under contract to AB Staffing Solutions of Gilbert, Ariz., according to a labs spokesperson. The contractor collected samples and Sandia personnel tested the specimens on-site.
Sandia first tested its own medical personnel, then expanded tests to symptomatic mission-critical employees who had to work on-site, pandemic notwithstanding.
The DOE facility’s employee-only tests are drive-through and by appointment. Personnel must request a test through Sandia’s medical clinic. The labs procures test kits from the New Mexico Department of Health.
Sandia is the first, and so far only, Energy Department nuclear weapons laboratory to test its own workforce. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration has said the Los Alamos National Laboratory was working on a testing capability, but the facility has not said whether it actually plans to test anyone, or process any tests.