Wealthy town is testing all residents
Bolinas hopes to fight off virus; UCSF sees chance for case study
BOLINAS >> In the 1970s, this remote seaside village gained a measure of notoriety when the quirky characters who lived here successfully halted new development and became the subject of the book “The Town That Fought to Save Itself.”
Now, nearly 50 years later, the Marin County town is fighting to save itself once again — this time from the threat of the coronavirus.
Starting Monday, a privately funded guerrillastyle operation will be un
derway to test the entire town of 1,680 people for the virus. It’s an extraordinarily rare privilege at a time when most of the country is desperate to get a handle on the extent of infection but hamstrung by a lack of available tests.
But this time, instead of counterculture hippies taking the lead, it’s the hightech multimillionaires — including a venture capitalist whose wife founded Flickr, a biotech entrepreneur and the founder of Zynga games — who either live or have weekend homes in this reclusive Northern California village an hour north of San Francisco.
“It’s this question of, well, do you just sit around and wait for the federal government to do something, or do you try to take action and help?” said Jyri Engestrom, 42, the venture capitalist who spearheaded the local effort along with Cyrus Harmon, who raised his children here and founded the startup Olema Pharmaceuticals to find new treatments for breast cancer.
There have been no confirmed coronavirus cases in town, but about half the residents are older than 60 and at higher risk from the virus. And Engestrom was particularly frustrated when one of the community’s first responders became sick with coronavirus symptoms, but because he had no direct connection with someone who tested positive, he couldn’t be tested himself.
Like the isolated wealthy communities of Telluride, Colorado, and Fisher Island, Florida, Bolinas has leveraged its wealth and connections to give its residents something for free that most Americans aren’t getting at all.
Along with an enthusiastic cadre of local volunteers, organizers here are launching the drive-thru, four-day testing project on a dirt lot next to the volunteer fire station.
The town is partnering with scientists at UCSF, who will return results within 72 hours to determine who is actively infected, who has been infected and who is still at risk. If people test positive, even if they show no symptoms, Dr. Anna O’malley from the local medical clinic will encourage them to isolate themselves.
The information can help combat the spread of the virus and be used by UCSF as a model for other communities as politicians decide when and how to reopen a country and economy that have been on lockdown for a month.
UCSF will launch a similar effort Thursday in San Francisco’s largely Latino Mission District, where it hopes to test 5,700 people. Beginning in early May, UC Berkeley will test 5,000 people across several East Bay communities.
So why Bolinas? “Why not Bolinas? It’s a terrific place. A community expressed the motivation and willpower to partner with the scientific community and policymakers to get this information,” said Dr. Diane Havlir, UCSF infectious disease specialist who is one of the leaders of the testing effort.
“Wealthy people? Whatever. It’s a motivated community.”
The grassroots effort in Bolinas began two weeks ago — an eternity in COVID-19 time — after Engestrom and Harmon, who didn’t know each other, both read about the northern Italian town of Vo, which tested nearly its entire community of 3,000 people at the height of the outbreak last month. Finding out who was positive for the virus and isolating them — especially those not showing symptoms — dramatically helped quell the spread there.
“A mutual friend texted both of us and said you should talk to each other,” Engestrom said. “We started thinking, what if we just knew if anyone in Bolinas had it so people could protect the elders who are kind of the pillars of this town?”
They quickly realized the operation wouldn’t be cheap — costing upwards of $400,000 — especially if they acquired hospitalgrade testing kits.
“Luckily, this third guy, Mark Pincus who founded Zynga, heard about it as well. He said, if you stop talking about it and actually do it, I will fund you with the first $100,000,” said Engestrom, who said he then realized, “Crap, now we have to do this.”
He brought in some of his own employees to drive around the region shopping for any remaining gloves and masks for registration volunteers at the testing site. Friends from Airbnb designed software to register townspeople for the testing.
If anyone thought Bolinas residents weren’t already trying to protect themselves from outside threats, you should have seen the locals waving homemade signs and turning back tourists lined up bumper-to-bumper just past Mickey Murch’s Gospel Flat farm stand the sunny weekend of March 21, shortly after the statewide shelter-in-place edict was announced.
“Go home!” about a dozen locals chanted. They even left their signs behind — “It’s a pandemic, not a vacation” — nailing them next to the permanent welcome sign at Horseshoe Hill Road alerting travelers they are “entering a socially acknowledged nature-loving town.”
Locals have since been channeling their activism into the testing effort. Bolinas Bay Hardware Store owner Dave Huebner cut plywood for new signs announcing the free testing, and local artist Stuart Chapman painted them. A local farmer graded the potholes out of the dirt lot that will be used for testing, and Dr. Aenor Sawyer, who spends most of her time at her home here, is organizing logistics on the drivethru lot. Local Ed Chiera is using his Spanish skills to reach out to the farmworkers in town.
By Friday, nearly the entire town — 1,430 — had signed up.
“This is something we’re all really grateful for, to have them come in and help us in this moment,” said Penny Hamilton, 71, a Bolinas massage therapist who has been out of work because of social distancing rules. “It’s the answer to my prayers. I feel I can function in the world if I know my status. The fact that the whole community is going to do this will give us a sense of calm.”
Some locals remain skeptical, however. The tech elite who have bought property here are responsible for skyrocketing housing prices and rents. The elementary school with low enrollment is suffering.
Michele Mcskye, 77, hasn’t decided whether to take the test. “The town is being used as an experiment,” she said. “We’re kind of losing our rights.”
During a virtual town
hall meeting on Zoom last week, some residents asked if their DNA would be shared on a database. No, the organizers insisted. Their results would remain confidential.
Two tests would be conducted and sent by refrigerated truck to the UCSF lab for processing.
First, an oral and nasal swab test would determine whether they are actively infected. The second is a blood test — a finger prick and a squeeze — that would determine whether they already have had the virus and have the antibodies to prove it. Abbott Labs has offered its new antibody test free.
Dr. Bryan Greenhouse, another UCSF infectious disease specialist coordinating the Bolinas project, said the rural town provides a rare epidemiological opportunity to study the virus. Surrounded by water on three sides and 2 miles off the main highway, it’s remote by Bay Area standards — an isolation that locals in pre-gps days protected by routinely removing highway signs pointing to the Bolinas turnoff.
The Mission District is the opposite — urban and dense and largely Latino.
“Having these two areas that are within a 45-minute drive but completely distinct will be a very interesting comparison,” Greenhouse said.
Although wealthy Bolinans are largely funding the study, a Gofundme page has been set up.
When Bolinas fought development in 1971, it imposed a moratorium on sewer hookups, since new homes couldn’t be built without them and outsiders would stay out.
As Bolinas launches its self-preservation fight against the global pandemic, Engestrom is hopeful that whatever resentments have festered in the town might be put aside — at least temporarily.
“Maybe it’s a feeble attempt at trying to justify my own existence here,” Engestrom said, “but the coronavirus came along and offers this outside threat that can help heal some of these rifts in the community.”