President’s coronavirus task force responds to spike in cases.
Over the past few months, the Alaskan seafood processing industry, driven in part by salmon, has been hit by recent outbreaks of COVID-19.
The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services called “Alaska’s worst week of the pandemic in terms of rapid increases in resident and nonresident new cases” in an update released Wednesday.
Via the New York Times, President Trump administration’s coronavirus task force issued a mandate to wear face masks at seafood processors.
This is because the Feds said there is an increased risk for transmission or severe disease, especially among seafood workers.
But Governor Mike Dunleavy criticised Anchorage Daily News coverage of the story saying that the state has already required seafood workers to cover their faces since May 15th.
On the 28th July, SalmonBusiness reported that 21 workers at Alaska Glacier Seafoods tested positive for virus over the weekend.
Anchorage Daily News reported that 139 out of about 252 workers tested positive at the OBI Seafoods plant in Seward and 76 workers out of about 135 did so at the Copper River Seafoods plant in Anchorage.
