Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has changed course and will allow some out-of-state seafood processing workers to receive COVID-19 vaccinations, after several large-scale outbreaks in remote processing facilities were reported recently.
Dunleavy announced his decision on Wednesday, 10 February, in a letter sent to Alaska’s seafood processors, according to the Seattle Times and the Anchorage Daily News.
“While working in our state or fishing in our waters, we intend to protect your workers with the same standard of care we are extending to all Alaskans,” Dunleavy wrote.
Specifically, Dunleavy approved a change in vaccine eligibility timelines, allowing seafood workers 50 years and older – even those who aren’t residents of Alaska – to become immediately eligible for COVID-19 vaccination. Younger seafood processing workers will receive priority in the vaccination queue under a yet-to-be-determined timeline, according to the letter.
The announcement was made soon after Trident Seafood, which had already been dealing with a massive outbreak in its Akutan, Alaska, facility, said it had found COVID-19 cases among its crew onboard its fishing vessels Kodiak Enterprise and Island Enterprise. Neither vessel is currently in operation, according to Marine Traffic.com. In Akutan, 307 of Trident’s 706 employees originally on-site tested positive for COVID-19, and more than 100 have been evacuated to Anchorage. The plant remains closed as the company continues to deal with the virus.
Additionally, UniSea’s Unalaska fish processing plant also experienced a major COVID-19 outbreak, with at least 66 positive cases, and OBI Seafoods had one employee at its Petersburg, Alaska processing facility tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this week.
There are an estimated 26,000 seafood processing workers in Alaska, and more than 70 percent of them are not Alaska residents, according to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. Unalaska City Manager Erin Reinders said in a 9 February memorandum that Alaska’s allocation of vaccines from the federal government does not take into account seasonal workers. That was confirmed by Dunleavy’s chief of staff, Ben Stevens, and Alaska Health Commissioner Adam Crum, in the Dunleavy’s letter sent to processors.
“We ask your industries to recognize the additional burden this places on the Alaska healthcare system,” they wrote in the letter.
Photo courtesy of Trident Seafoods
