One out of ten Bostonians has been exposed to coronavirus, according to initial testing of people in four Zip codes

... that I was exposed a while back and beat it with my immune system and am now possibly immune and possibly unable to infect anyone else. Wishful thinking.

Well, I can’t complain. Many are worse off.

We see many false negatives (tests where no antibody is detected despite the fact we know it is there) and we also see false positives. None of the tests we have validated would meet the criteria for a good test. This is not a good result for test suppliers or for us.” -- Sir John Bell, Professor of Medicine, Oxford University

It seems that citizens seeking a test may avoid the cost and hassle by simply putting all of the possibilities on sticky notes, crumpling those and then pulling one from a hat. The chances of pulling a note indicating positive, negative, false negative, false positive etc. are probably about as close to the "accuracy" of an approved test. It's important to recall that the goal of the lockdown was to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by the doomsday predictions which, in retrospect, proved grossly exaggerated. Nobody was denied a ventilator or hospital bed and now there is a surplus of both. We know that hospitals are partially vacant with many trained, healthcare professionals on the unemployment line, not the front line. Life is full of risks and there is actual proof that the risk of death here is miniscule for those healthy under age 60. Let's remember the lives lost and protect those still in the vulnerable categories. The ambitious goal of the lockdown has been met and far exceeded, so let's stop the insanity.

This study oversampled women over men, and the Roslindale population by a huge amount. That doesn’t mean it’s useless, but the results need to be weighted for these sampling imbalances.

The population of the total area sampled is about 150,000. Roslindale makes up 20% of this population, but 37% of those sampled were from 02131. The Dorchester zip codes have about twice the population of Roslindale, but the number of people sampled is only 1% larger.

It’s still valuable information and it proves that so far there is not a huge number of asymptomatic people who have acquired immunity under the radar. But what we really need is a scientific selection of random test-takers from all over the city, and hopefully all over the state.

I was hoping that the antibody results would be high, like they were in Chelsea, but this is still good info. I can't wait until we're doing 50,000+ tests per day like Governor Baker suggests we will. With that data people will be much better able to judge the risks.

I'm glad to see that they did some testing in my area (02125), though I actually wish I had known and had been able to volunteer, had that been possible. I'm "healthy" - meaning I'm either not infected at all or I'm just asymptomatic, but I yearn for the time when we can all get tested even without suspicion of symptoms, etc. I know that infections can happen anytime, but I think a lot of us would find some needed peace of mind knowing where we are with things after the last few months. Any kind of reassurance would be helpful for all of us right now - even, I would think, getting a positive test result (I'd rather know than not know).

Hoping that sooner, rather than later, testing can be readily available as a matter of course. Meanwhile, it's great to know that random testing like this IS being done, and I hope it continues.