Covid-19 and Salmon in Chile: Alert to the international market due to high contagion of the Virus in salmon cities of Chiloé island and Patagonia

Even SalmonChile A.G. will begin to «collaborate with the transfer of people to Sanitary Residences, deliver 2,000 sanitary kits for workers in the industry, preventive kits, and we will also collaborate with solidarity boxes (of food), for people who have to do mandatory quarantine due to the pandemic issue. And we are also talking with the authority to see what measures should be taken to reestablish greater controls at the entrance of the province of Chiloe. «

Chiloe island, Chile, January 28, 2021. (Ecoceanos News) -The Salmon Industry Owner Association (SalmonChile) , announced that they will carry out a work stoppage to check if their workers have been infected with Coronavirus. This after the alarming situation that occurred in Quellon, Chiloé Island, the main port of landing and processing of salmon from the southern regions of Los Lagos, Aysen and Magellan.

«Through a comprehensive plan, the companies Salmones Austral, Yadran and Marine Farm, partners of SalmonChile A.G. , will seek active cases among their workers and sanitize the spaces, momentarily pausing their operations in Quellon,» reported radio biobio.cl.

These companies do not accept the entry of workers who have a negative PCR certificate, that is, they do not have Covid-19. In Quellon port , there are several relatives of the salmon workers who have been certified as positive for coronavirus and are serving quarantine in their homes. But there is no hard and formal restriction on the workers who must go to work in the factories and process this salmon that is consumed mainly in the United States, China, Japan,Russia, and Europe.

In Chile, the harvest season for export salmon occurs in these months. The manager of Salmon Chile, Tomás Monge, told radio biobio that they are facing this situation by delivering boxes of food to workers, in addition to sanitary items.

Monje said that the salmon entrepreneurs are going to «collaborate with the transfer of people to sanitary residences, deliver 2,000 sanitary kits for industrial workers, preventive kits, and we will also collaborate with solidarity boxes for people who have to do see what measures should be taken to re-establish greater entry controls to the province of Chiloe.

Ecoceanos Centre: Massive salmon production and exports drive the expansion of Covid-19 in southern Chile

The municipality of Quellon with 197, 6 infected per 100,000 inhabitants, leads the incidence rate of Covid-19 active cases in Chile. In this strategic port located in the south of the island of Chiloe, 7,000 workers are concentrated in eight mega plants that process salmon and farmed trout, destined for export.

The Los Lagos region, where Quellón is located, is known by the industry as the “capital of Chilean salmon”. For two weeks, this region has had the highest rates of Covid-19 positive cases in the South American country, surpassing Magellan, another salmon-producing region, located in Chilean Patagonia.

These industrial plants, – several of them owned by transnational companies – have continued to operate at full capacity during the pandemic period in Chile. Regional health authorities point to them as one of the main sources of massive infections.

During 2020, this mega industry that has protection and full government facilities to carry out land, air and shipping movements of its workers, fish and supplies, exported 780,000 tons, worth 4.4 billion dollars (US $ 4.4 billion), to 75 international markets, among which the United States (223,000 tons) stands out, a shipment 14% higher than the pre-pandemic period of 2019.

Call to international consumers of salmon from southern Chile

The Ecoceanos Centre called on international retailers, importers and consumers, -especially North Americans-, not to purchase industrially farmed salmon from Chile, “since its consumption drives the suffering and violation of the rights of thousands of people, workers and their families who are being contaminated with Covid-19 in the processing plants ”.

The citizen organization pointed out that “protecting the health of salmon workers in Chile, in turn protects the health of international consumers, since the increase in Covid-19 cases inside processing plants constitutes a potential threat of biological contamination of these export products ”. The Ecoceanos Centre drew attention to the complaint made on January 21 by the Chinese authorities, about an alleged detection of Covid -19 in cherries imported from the South American country.*****FIN*****