COVID compliance was way more than testing and masks.

But first, PCR tests are not cheap. Antigen/Rapid tests are fairly cheap but were only approved by unions last summer--and only for a narrow set of low budget productions. Generally, a PCR test costs $150--$200 depending on the vendor/region and availability of labs. The mandated testing frequency of a normal sized union crew results in about 400 tests a week so that low end estimate is 60k a week for the swab & lab alone.

That's also just for the core crew. If you've got 50 extras working for one day, you've got another 50 tests, and 50 to 100 pre-employment tests (depending on your local situation) and paying them for their time to show up for the tests.

And that's just the cost of testing. You also need to hire staff to administer testing, enforce compliance, and sanitize. Add 1k each week for each production assistant. Then another 1500-2000 for each Admin, Supervisor, and Manager. It's easy to hit 100k a week for COVID department alone between testing, labor, and supplies. 5 Weeks of Prep with a 6 week shoot is a minimum of a million dollar COVID budget.

The first iteration of the RTW agreement also included a stipend for union members who tested. So add another $200 fee for every test, every crew member higher than a production assistant who tested. Subsequent deals reduced that to a fee for pre-employment testing only--which is more reasonable but still quite costly as you are adding another 200-300 days of labor across your production.

Then there's a dozen other issues and tangents that cost money. Like needing more hair and makeup artists, and more trailers for them to work in in order to maintain social distancing. Or, needing to budget more time for fewer workers to prepare cast in limited space. More drivers to transport fewer cast & crew members per van. Similar issue with locations, three days to prep, shoot, and wrap a location turned into 4 days to sanitize, prep, shoot, and wrap. There was also a practice of carrying more staff so that if one got quarantined or had inconclusive results you still had the minimum number for each department to operate.

To give you an idea of how complicated it all is: A big issue for awhile was catering. The longstanding Union agreements required lunch breaks to give all members equal access to catering facilities for the break period. Because social distancing requirements made "equal access" impossible, nearly every union member was also being paid penalties for not having a 'proper' break. Many productions converted to walking/rolling lunches. This mostly ended with the availability of vaccines (and union members needing a real break more than the penalty dollars).