Table 3

Costs, testing capacity and human resource needs for conducting SARS-CoV-2 surveillance testing across Canada over 14-day intervals

Outcome category	Employees of acute care hospitals	CHW and employees and residents of long-term care facilities	Essential employees with public or interpersonal contact	Children and staff of schools	All groups at once
Situation on July 17, 2020
Estimated SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in population, %	0.25	0.25	0.1	0.05	–
Total no. of people to sample^*	60 942	30 462	86 951	302 313	408 668
Human resource requirements
No. of health care professionals	73	588	1235	3633	5529
No. of clerical staff	145	619	1322	3933	6019
No. of laboratory staff	79	37	107	371	595
Laboratory capacity requirements
No. of laboratory tests run per day	4353	2176	6211	21 594	34 333
Costs to test all, $	2.3 million	6.6 million	14.4 million	45.6 million	69.1 million
Situation if prevalence was 10 × higher
Estimated SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in population, %	2.5	2.5	1.0	0.5	–
Total no. of people to sample^†	48 728	19 391	56 403	198 776	323 298
Human resource requirements
No. of health care professionals	58	379	801	2404	3642
No. of clerical staff	116	399	857	2601	3973
No. of laboratory staff	63	24	69	244	401
Laboratory capacity requirements
No. of laboratory tests run per day	3481	1385	4029	14 198	23 093
Costs to test all, $	1.9 million	4.3 million	9.3 million	30.2 million	45.7 million

Note: CHW = community health care workers, SARS-CoV-2 = severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
↵* All sample sizes calculated based on having a relative precision of 100% for the 95% confidence interval around the estimated SARS-CoV-2 prevalence.
↵† All sample sizes calculated based on having a relative precision of 50% for the 95% confidence interval around the estimated SARS-CoV-2 prevalence.