The challenges of establishing adequate capacity for SARS ‐ C o V ‐2 testing

1 University of Western Australia, Perth, WA. 2 PathWest Laboratory Medicine WA, Perth, WA. david.smith@health.wa.gov.au ▪ doi: 10.5694/mja2.50610 ▪ See Research (Caly). Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID19), has spread rapidly throughout the world from its origins in China in late 2019; the COVID19 outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization on 11 March 2020.1 It is the seventh coronavirus known to have crossed from animals to humans, and may become the fifth to persist as an endemic human coronavirus.2