An American Seafoods vessel, the American Triumph, arrived in Unalaska on Thursday with a total of 85 crew members testing positive for COVID-19. The ship is set to arrive in Seward later this week.
The vessel arrived in Unalaska on Thursday with 119 people on board. Seven crew members had reported symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and six of them tested positive shortly after arriving in Unalaska. All crew members were restricted to either the vessel or their isolation location while in Unalaska.
Testing and screening of the remaining 112 persons on board was then completed, resulting in an additional 79 individuals with positive tests. That made the tally 85 crew members who tested positive and 34 crew members testing negative.
Charter flights were arranged to transport the 34 crew members with negative tests from Unalaska to Anchorage to begin a period of quarantine and symptom monitoring. The individuals testing positive will be sailing to Seward with American Seafoods medical support personnel on board. They are expected to arrive in Seward mid-day Wednesday.
Immediately upon docking in Seward, all crew aboard the American Triumph will load directly onto waiting buses to travel directly to their Anchorage isolation location for further care and monitoring. The vessel will remain in Seward’s port to be professionally cleaned and disinfected. Once the vessel cleaning is completed, a new skeleton crew that has been quarantining in Anchorage for 14 days will onboard. Arrangements have been made so that no members of the crew will depart the vessel while in port.
The mitigation plan developed to handle the ship and her crew was approved by Alaska Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink and provides medical attention, isolation, and quarantine of the crew while assuring minimal risk to the community of Seward.
Seward’s Mayor, Christy Terry: “Alaskans have a long legacy of helping those in need. Seward is willing and able to respond to this request for assistance, knowing that risks have been mitigated to protect our community and our own health care system.”