covidfisheries

In the Aleutian port town of Unalaska, at least five local boats are stuck at the dock with nowhere to deliver their cod after the shutdown of the Alyeska Seafoods processing plant. One has a load of fish worth at least $10,000.

The winter fishery for Bering Sea pollock, which goes into products like McDonald's fish sandwiches, officially opened Wednesday. But two of the region's largest processors are both shut down

A federal agency has put some dollar amounts to the impact from the COVID-19 pandemic on commercial and charter fishing industries nationwide in the first part of last year.

A second seafood processing plant in the Aleutian Islands has been hit with COVID-19 infections as the busy winter pollock fishing season is set to kick off.

UniSea is one of the largest seafood plants in the world.

A proposal would split the money roughly equally between processors, commercial fishermen, and charter guides.

Economists are looking at the cost of the precautionary measures processors took to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Workers, many of whom come from out of the country, say they weren't informed of the extreme restrictions before they arrived.

A total of 37 people have tested positive for COVID-19 at the plant.

The cases were reported in a "remote area of the borough" and the alert level of the island remains at a 'green' status.