Confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 across the National Nuclear Security Administration enterprise have tripled since January and are also three times higher than this time last year, according to data from agency headquarters.
The civilian nuclear weapons steward also reported five confirmed COVID-19-related deaths since the first week of January, spokespersons from headquarters in Washington said in January and February. From the first week of December to the first week of January, there were two confirmed deaths.
Of the five new reported fatal cases, two were people at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, two were people at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and one was a person at the Y-12 National Security Site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., spokespersons wrote in emails to the Exchange Monitor.
Their deaths make a total of 38 confirmed, COVID-19-related fatalities across National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) labs, plans and sites since the pandemic reached the U.S. in early 2020.
It is unclear how many of those who have died across the enterprise were vaccinated against COVID-19. Some of the fatalities occurred before the widespread availability of vaccines for NNSA employees and contractors, many of whom were deemed essential personnel and allowed to take the jab before vaccines went out en masse to the general public in spring 2021.
Total confirmed COVID-19 cases NNSA-wide were 1,747 by the first week of February, up from 530 during the first week of January, according to the figures provided weekly from headquarters.
Skyrocketing positive tests in the enterprise mirror the national surge brought about by the more contagious omicron variant, designated as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization in the final week of November after its emergence in South Africa.
Among NNSA site operations contractors that report vaccination rates, none had a vaccination rate below 70% and many had a higher rate, according to data provided by spokespersons. The Nevada National Security Site had a roughly 70% vaccination rate as of Friday, though that figure accounted only for people vaccinated onsite, a spokesperson said.
The vaccination rate was more than 80% at each of the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the Pantex Plant in Amarillo, Texas, a spokesperson said Friday. Both sites will, at least until March 31, be managed by outgoing prime Consolidated Nuclear Security, a Bechtel National-led team.
All three NNSA nuclear weapons labs, Livermore in California and Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico, vaccination rates were at 90% or higher, spokespersons said last week.
Alone among the NNSA’s big sites, only the Kansas City National Security Campus in Missouri would not disclose how many of its employees have been vaccinated.
Meanwhile, the federal government was scheduled to ask an appeals court to reverse a lower court’s decision that since December has blocked enforcement of President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors.
The lower court’s ruling prompted every major NNSA prime contractor except Triad National Security at Los Alamos to stop enforcing vaccine mandates. Most of these mandates required employees to get vaccinated or find another job, unless they got a medical or religious exemption. Typically, those who got a religious exemption were placed on leave without pay.
The Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which is managed by DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM) but does NNSA nuclear-weapons using NNSA appropriations passed through the EM contract, also kept its mandate in place, arguing in a separate court case that it has the right to do so as a private employer.
