PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Teresa C.O. Tsui
AU  - Seraphine Zeitouny
AU  - Karen E. Bremner
AU  - Douglas C. Cheung
AU  - Carol Mulder
AU  - Ruth Croxford
AU  - Lisa Del Giudice
AU  - Lauren Lapointe-Shaw
AU  - Andrew Mendlowitz
AU  - William W.L. Wong
AU  - Nathan Perlis
AU  - Beate Sander
AU  - Paulos Teckle
AU  - George Tomlinson
AU  - Jennifer D. Walker
AU  - Kamil Malikov
AU  - Kimberlyn M. McGrail
AU  - Stuart Peacock
AU  - Girish S. Kulkarni
AU  - Reka E. Pataky
AU  - Murray D. Krahn
TI  - Initial health care costs for COVID-19 in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada: an interprovincial population-based cohort study
AID  - 10.9778/cmajo.20210328
DP  - 2022 Jul 01
TA  - CMAJ Open
PG  - E818--E830
VI  - 10
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.cmajopen.ca/content/10/3/E818.short
4100  - http://www.cmajopen.ca/content/10/3/E818.full
SO  - CMAJ2022 Jul 01; 10
AB  - Background: COVID-19 imposed substantial health and economic burdens. Comprehensive population-based estimates of health care costs for COVID-19 are essential for planning and policy evaluation. We estimated publicly funded health care costs in 2 Canadian provinces during the pandemic’s first wave.Methods: In this historical cohort study, we linked patients with their first positive SARS-CoV-2 test result by June 30, 2020, in 2 Canadian provinces (British Columbia and Ontario) to health care administrative databases and matched to negative or untested controls. We stratified patients by highest level of initial care: community, long-term care, hospital (without admission to the intensive care unit [ICU]) and ICU. Mean publicly funded health care costs for patients and controls, mean net (attributable to COVID-19) costs and total costs were estimated from 30 days before to 120 days after the index date, or to July 31, 2020, in 30-day periods for patients still being followed by the start of each period.Results: We identified 2465 matched people with a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2 in BC and 28 893 in Ontario. Mean age was 53.4 (standard deviation [SD] 21.8) years (BC) and 53.7 (SD 22.7) years (Ontario); 55.7% (BC) and 56.1% (Ontario) were female. Net costs in the first 30 days after the index date were $22 010 (95% confidence interval [CI] 19 512 to 24 509) and $15 750 (95% CI 15 354 to 16 147) for patients admitted to hospital, and $65 828 (95% CI 58 535 to 73 122) and $56 088 (95% CI 53 721 to 58 455) for ICU patients in BC and Ontario, respectively. In the community and long-term care settings, net costs were near 0. Total costs for all people, from 30 days before to 30 days after the index date, were $22 128 330 (BC) and $175 778 210 (Ontario).Interpretation: During the first wave, we found that mean costs attributable to COVID-19 were highest for patients with ICU admission and higher in BC than Ontario. Reducing the number of people who acquire COVID-19 and severity of illness are required to mitigate the economic impact of COVID-19.