Early results show no one tested positive in Bolinas
Researchers at UCSF on Wednesday cautioned that results from mass coronavirus testing in Bolinas and San Francisco’s Mission District were not final after reports that no one tested positive in the small Marin County town.
Officials said they expect to release summary results, which will be aggregate and anonymous, on Friday once “all results are final and the data has been appropriately analyzed.”
“No conclusions can be drawn about actual rates of COVID19 infection in the community until analysis of all samples is complete,” UCSF researchers said in a statement.
The statement followed a Marin Independent Journal report that said nobody in Bolinas, which has a population of about 1,600, tested positive for the coronavirus last week. The paper attributed the information to Dr. Matt Willis, the county’s chief public health officer.
Benita McLarin, director of Marin County’s Health and Human Services department, confirmed to The Chronicle that no one in Bolinas had tested positive.
The study, which hopes to better understand patterns of infection, tested people in both communities for the coronavirus and for antibodies to help determine the rate of infections.
Researchers estimate results for both tests in both communities will be completed and analyzed near the end of May, said Elizabeth Fernandez, a UCSF spokeswoman. Officials finished conducting tests on thousands of people in the Mission District on Tuesday.
“The results are not final,” Fernandez said. “The data analysis is not complete.”
The testing initiative in Bolinas started with Jyri Engeström, a Finnish venture capitalist who corralled the community to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to test everyone in town — more than 1,800 people, including about 150 first responders.
In the Mission, Tracy Gallardo, a Latina community organizer, gathered volunteers to help test people.