An effort to test every resident in the secluded Marin County town of Bolinas has not found a single positive case of the novel coronavirus.
Marin County officials announced the results Tuesday evening. Nearly 1,800 residents of the reclusive coastal town were tested by researchers at UCSF. The early results released this week were for PCR tests, which test for active infections. Results of antibody tests will take a few more weeks.
While health officials are relieved by the results, they warn that the tests only represent a small window of time and will need to be repeated. Some experts have also suggested that PCR tests can return a high number of false negative tests.
Marin County Public Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis says the Bolinas trial will need to be expanded before officials will consider relaxing shelter-in-place orders. Currently the county is conducting about 300 tests a day; Dr. Willis wants to see that number increase to at least 500.
Meanwhile, Stanford and UCSF are launching two large scale virus projects in May that will test 7,500 people who have already had negative test results for the coronavirus and then continuously test them over several months. The data will be reported to health authorities and could be used to track the spread of the virus and influence decisions about shelter-in-place orders.
UC Berkeley is also launching a similar project to test 5,000 people in May and follow them for eight months. The projects will differ from the Bolinas study by testing a wider group of people from across the Bay Area over a longer period of time.
