offer antibody testing to all of the roughly 8,000 residents of telluride and the surrounding county of san miguelor free. the county now plans on testing everyone, regardless of any symptoms or any known contact with anyone who has the coronavirus. san miguel county says they have already tested all of the first responders of the county and their families, that was 645 tests, and now they're going to start testing everyone else. they're going to roll it out in phases and try to get to every single person in the county. and when you do that, when you approach it that way, when you test an entire community, you end up providing individual people with individually interesting data, people find out if they've got antibodies to the virus, but you may also see things in the data that couldn't have been apparent through any other approach. in iceland, for example, they tried large-scale testing in that small island nation. that thus far has shown not just who had the virus, so they could be isolated to stop it from spreading any further, but also that iceland mass testing program showed that half of the

the kits being donated to san miguel county come from united biomedical, whose two executives live partime in telluride, the county's popular resort town. unlike the common nasal swabs, the technique involves a blood test to identify whether a patient has antibodies that can neutralize this virus. officials say they're offering tests to first responders and their families first and hope then to offer them to residents starting early next week. with me now is dr. deanne e a cullinger. walk me through how you think this will work and why it is so important. >> hi, john. thanks for having us today. well, we're here in san miguel county in southwest colorado, and we have been given this amazing opportunity to add another arm of testing to what we've already been doing in our county. our hope is to do this blood test, which specifically is a test for antibodies to the covid-19 virus, and we are hoping to conduct this on all of the members of san miguel county once and then again in 14 to 16 days to give us a better idea of the burden of this virus in our community. >> what do you know curren

their current plan, test as many of the residents of colorado's rural san miguel county as possible. >> we'll be able to find out who has been exposed and who has antibodies and hence who has a certain level of immunity to this. >> reporter: once the antibody test is more widely available, researchers will be able to screen large numbers of potential donors for antibody-rich plasma to be used for treatment. >> i don't think any center across the country is going to have any trouble generous people. >> that was dr. jon lapook census. chip reid has the story. >> reporter: this is took sook bay, alaska, on the behring sea about as far as you can get away from the united states. this is the director of the census bureau who flew in on a frigid january day to count the first person in our nation's 2020 census. the constitutionally mandated once a decade count of every single person within our borders. >> 2020 census has begun. >> reporter: it was very emotional to me. >> the entire village had gathered. they were playing native music. they were celebrating the 2020 census. an rte that acr

their current plan, test as many of the residents of colorado's rural san miguel county as possible.who has been exposed and who has antibodies and hence who has a certain level of immunity to this. >> reporter: once the antibody test is more