The Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories said Monday it evacuated and closed Building 823 at its Albuquerque, N.M., facility after confirming a case of COVID-19 among the workforce there.
Sandia will now disinfect the building, which houses laboratory space used by Sandia’s geosciences program and others, and track down anybody there who had close contact with the employee who tested positive, according to the lab’s statement.
On Friday, prior to confirming a case at Building 823, a Sandia spokesperson said the lab had 36 confirmed cases of the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus: 28 at Albuquerque, and eight at the lab’s the Livermore, Calif., satellite. That was up from 31 cases last week, with 24 in Albuquerque and seven in Livermore.
Sandia had not said at deadline when Building 823 would reopen. Deep-cleaning a building usually takes the lab a day or two.
Meanwhile, DOE’s Hanford Site in Washington state as of Tuesday morning was limiting access to several facilities while they undergo disinfection. In those cases, an employee who works in the facility is being tested for coronavirus infection, according to recent updates at the cleanup sites.
Access remains restricted to two mobile offices in Hanford’s 200 West Area, one mobile office in the 200 East Area, and an affected area in the 2704HV complex in the 200 East Area. Previous notices indicated that only janitorial personnel were allowed into resticted-access areas.
However, employees are now being allowed back into the T-52 warehouse for the Waste Treatement Plant, which is being built by Bechtel National to convert Hanford’s radioactive waste into a glass form for disposal.
Access was earlier restored to two separate mobile offices in the 200 East Area.
