Fish have been slow to show up across Alaska’s early salmon fisheries, and cases of COVID-19 continue to creep up around the state.
The city of Dillingham, located in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region, announced late Monday, 22 June, that health officials had confirmed 12 new cases of COVID-19 in non-resident seafood workers. A press release from the city did not reveal which processor the employees worked for, but said they had all been isolated on a closed company campus and that sanitation protocols had been activated.
According to the press release, the company tests non-resident employees three times, once before traveling to Bristol Bay and twice during a two-week quarantine period. The workers who came up positive were on day six of their quarantine in Dillingham, on the second of three scheduled tests.
“While we are always concerned to hear about cases of COVID-19 in Dillingham, the protection plans in place caught these cases during quarantine and are helping to prevent community spread. We encourage everyone to continue to be cautious and follow state and local protective measures, including Dillingham’s quarantine and testing requirements,” Dillingham Mayor Alice Ruby said in the press release.
Ruby was among local city and tribal officials in the Bristol Bay region who requested that Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy shut down the lucrative salmon fishery for the season over fears of a COVID-19 outbreak in the rural outpost in western Alaska, where health care infrastructure is limited. The state had reported seven new cases of COVID-19 in Bristol Bay’s seafood industry last Thursday.
Home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run, the fishing season typically starts in mid-June in Bristol Bay, but low escapement numbers mean fishermen have yet to put their nets in the water across the fishery’s four districts. Area managers for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said they believe the slow start can be chalked up to a cold winter keeping river temperatures down.
Meanwhile, Sealevel Seafoods temporarily suspended operations at its plant in Wrangell, Alaska after an employee there tested positive for COVID-19, according to KINY Radio. Sealevel announced it will sanitize its facility during the temporary shutdown and the company’s COVID-19 prevention protocols went “above and beyond CDC guidelines,” according to KINY.
Alaska Public Media also reported three new cases of COVID-19 at a seafood processing plant in Southeast Alaska’s Excursion Inlet, about 40 miles west of Juneau. The plant is owned by OBI Seafoods, the company created by the merger last month of Ocean Beauty Seafoods and Icicle Seafoods.
State authorities had announced a total of 761 COVID-19 cases and 12 related deaths in Alaska as of noon on Monday, with around 250 active cases, near the state’s highest number since the beginning of the pandemic.
And while COVID-19 cases crept up in Alaska, fish numbers remained low. A report released Monday by the McDowell Group for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) and said year-to-date salmon catch was at a 12-year low.
“Sockeye landings of about 640,000 fish are 75 percent lower than the same time in 2019, when more than 2.5 million fish had been harvested. All regions are slow against prior years with [Prince William Sound] down sharply,” the report said.
Photo courtesy of Maxim Gorishniak/Shutterstock
