LANL sees first death from virus as caseload climbs

Nov. 18--The coronavirus outbreak raging through the state at a record rate is being felt at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where officials said an employee died of COVID-19 amid an unprecedented surge.

Lab Director Thom Mason in an email to employees Monday lamented the worker's death and said there have been 59 new cases in the past week -- the lab's worst uptick -- bringing its total to 191, according to the Los Alamos Reporter.

Mason estimated five employees are hospitalized and 873 are self-quarantining, the online news site said.

The rising caseload at the lab comes after a federal watchdog reported last month that some employees arrived at work with COVID-19 symptoms and others gathered in close contact in break rooms.

The lapse in social distancing led to some employees quarantining as a precautionary measure, said the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board in a late October report.

"In one example, a large number of radiation-protection staff members in the Plutonium Facility were isolated," the agency said.

Those workers all tested negative and returned to work the next day, but the incidents prompted the lab to assess the configuration of break rooms, the report said.

Lab officials didn't respond to inquiries Tuesday about the outbreak or employees not following precautions.

"The sad reality is COVID-19 is spreading rapidly in New Mexico. No place is immune," said Marisa Maez, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health. "We are seeing more and more places of business experiencing COVID-positive employees."

If one infected person comes into the workplace and makes contact with others, Maez said, "the spread begins and snowballs from there."

The lab had its first reported case of COVID-19 at the site in late March. It was a subcontractor who worked for N3B, the company in charge of cleaning up the lab's legacy waste generated before 1999.

At the time, the case prompted Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to express concerns about COVID-19 emerging around the lab. If left unabated, it could create "significant national security issues," she said.

State health officials have said repeatedly that a sudden surge in cases, whether in a city, business or large organization, can usually be pegged to a slackening in precautions, such as not wearing masks or gathering in groups without proper social distancing, especially in the midst of increased community spread.

Throughout the pandemic, lab officials have insisted they have worked to protect the staff and thwart the virus's spread through rigorous guidelines.

Those include tracing the infected employees' contacts, quarantining those who came near an infected worker and having a large portion of the staff work remotely, lab officials said.

But employees who have certain classified jobs can't work at home for security reasons. And some jobs only can be done at the lab, such as handling radioactive materials or cleaning up legacy waste at the Area G disposal site.

Having key employees working off-site resulted in the lab earlier this year postponing the release of radioactive vapors from four tritium waste containers. The containers now are scheduled to be vented by winter.

Mason last month issued a memo emphasizing the importance of following COVID-19 controls and looking at whether more employees could work remotely, the safety board said.

Maez said it's important that as many people as possible in an organization like the lab telework to curb the spread.

"As we know, asymptomatic individuals are inadvertently infecting others," she said. "People who test but don't stay home ... until after they receive their results are walking around spreading the disease."

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