UNISEA

The city warned Unalaskans Thursday of possible transmission of the coronavirus between seafood industry workers and the larger Unalaska community. 

"The community is most definitely at a high local risk factor for COVID-19, in fact, more serious than at any time since the start of the pandemic," the city said in a statement. "The vaccine provides hope, but vaccine supply has limited our ability to vaccinate everyone who wants to receive it." 

Unalaska's largest fish processing plant reopened Monday after a COVID-19 outbreak forced it to shut down for almost a month. 

UniSea closed its doors Jan. 5 after a handful of workers tested positive for the virus, following a New Year's gathering in company housing. 

COVID-19 has hit another processing plant operated by fishing giant Trident Seafoods — this time aboard one of the corporation's massive factory trawlers, the Island Enterprise.

Trident announced Thursday five workers on the football field-length ship tested positive for the coronavirus after it arrived in the Aleutian port of Dutch Harbor for the winter fishing season. 

As January comes to a close, Unalaska is rounding up the start of its busy winter fishing season. That's usually a bustling time for local bars and restaurants, with fishermen and industry workers filling bar stools at the Norwegian Rat Saloon or crowding the dance floor at Harbor View Bar and Grill.  

A third seafood processing plant has shut down in the Aleutian Islands amid a COVID-19 outbreak, threatening to further derail lucrative winter fisheries in the region.

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, according to a crew member on one of them, Tacho Camacho Castillo.