Wary of outsiders, Bolinas, Calif., allowed one of them, a tech entrepreneur who moved there in 2014, to test the community for the coronavirus.
When the coronavirus outbreak appeared likely to rage through the Bay Area weeks ago, residents of this hermit-like beach community tried to protect themselves by doing what they do best — keeping out strangers.
Jyri Engestrom, 42, a venture capitalist who owns a home here, worried that the pandemic would rage through town, which has about 1,600 residents, many of them seniors. Some residents had symptoms but could not get tested.“I was getting scared because frankly this is a town of aging hippies whose idea of social distancing is not to hug each other as much,” he said.
Surrounded by the sea on three sides and reachable from San Francisco by a long, windy, cliff-edged, two-lane road, this hamlet is best known for its disdain of development and outsiders. Bolinas leaders limited water hookups decades ago to keep the community small and tore down traffic signs that pointed the way to town.. The entrepreneurs ingratiated themselves, donating money for local causes, including a park.
He and Cyrus Harmon, 49, who founded a pharmaceutical startup and moved to Bolinas 10 years ago, got the idea for community-wide testing after reading about the northern Italian town of Vo. It tested nearly all its 3,000 residents at the height of the coronavirus outbreak. The two men said they wanted to give something back to the town.
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