Isabelle Ross

The Dillingham City Council holds a workshop and passes an ordinance restricting travel to the community from 11:59 p.m. on April 6 to May 1. 

The City of Dillingham has restricted travel to the community for non-essential personnel, as have many communities around the region. Icicle Seafoods is the only processor operating in the Togiak sac roe herring fishery this spring. And educators around Bristol Bay are having to adjust their curriculums and tackle distance learning. 

This week, we covered teleconferences from Dillingham to Bristol Bay Borough, as both local governments prepare for a potential spread of the coronavirus. No cases have been confirmed in Bristol Bay. Dillingham business owners shared how they are coping with closures and changes to operations. Villages around Bristol Bay are shutting down travel and school districts share updates to academic calendars. 

Alethia Belleque has been studying abroad in Peru since August. She was planning to stay until June, but the coronavirus pandemic changed that. Peru shut its borders to commercial flights in and out of the country. Now, her family is trying to get her back to Alaska. 

We are practicing social distancing while working to keep everyone up to date on the coronavirus. Alaska is now up to 12 cases. People from Bristol Bay have been tested, but the results are pending.

Bristol Bay Area Health Corporation is putting extra measures into place to prepare for coronavirus, modifying and adapting their normal practices in communities around the region. 

Supplies of certain products have run low statewide because of people stocking up in the wake of coronavirus concerns. In Bristol Bay, several grocery stores are preparing to offset the wave of product shortages in the region.

Prevention preparations ramp up in Bristol Bay, a day after Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced Alaska's first confirmed case of COVID-19. Concerns about the virus have upended plans for several regional organizations. 

Thousands of fishermen, processors, and cannery workers will travel to Bristol Bay in the coming months to participate in the commercial fishery. As of Thursday afternoon, no one in the region had been tested for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus

The Trump administration last month proposed to narrow the scope of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. That could have profound impacts on how industry players approach development in Alaska.