No one tests positive for coronavirus in small California town of Bolinas

Not one of the nearly 1,800 people who live in the small, western Marin County coastal town Bolinas tested positive for the coronavirus last week in a privately funded UCSF study, health officials told the Marin Independent Journal. 

Why this occurred and how unusual it has not yet been explained, though one obvious connection could be that the beach town is remote. A cardboard sign hung on a fence reads: "Bolinas closed to visitors for duration of pandemic."

To compare, a testing site in the bustling city of Hayward of 4,000 saw 11 percent of the people test positive for the virus.  

In his opinion, Marin County’s chief public health officer Dr. Willis said that strict shelter-in-place orders worked.

Bolinas to offer free coronavirus tests to all residents

“This is a sign to me that we really did get in front of this and interrupt transmission,” he told the newspaper, noting there have been no confirmed cases in Bolinas since the first Marin County diagnosis was reported on March 9.

Two dozen people at SF's Mission District housing program test positive for COVID-19

UCSF spokeswoman Elizabeth Fernandez said that the Bolinas test results are not yet final and data analysis is not complete. No conclusions can be drawn about actual rates of COVID-19 infection in the community until analysis of all samples is complete, she said. 

Fernandez said the official summary results from Bolinas will be made public by the UCSF study team in conjunction with the Marin Department of Public Health when all results are final and the data has been analyzed, likely on Friday. 

As part of a parallel study, the same UCSF researchers tested nearly 6,000 people in San Francisco's predominantly Latino Mission District over four days last week. Those results also have not been made public. 

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UCSF researchers test residents of Bolinas for coronavirus.

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UCSF researchers test residents of Bolinas for coronavirus.

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UCSF researchers test residents of Bolinas for coronavirus.

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UCSF researchers test residents of San Francisco's Mission District for coronavirus.

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UCSF researchers test residents of San Francisco's Mission District for coronavirus.

Lisa Fernandez is a reporter for KTVU. Email Lisa at lisa.fernandez@foxtv.com or call her at 510-874-0139. Or follow her on Twitter @ljfernandez