The COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) was one of the Government of Canada's early efforts to track the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. An external, dedicated secretariat was established in order to maximize the efficiency of the CITF's work.

The group terminated its mandate on March 31, 2024.

Purpose

The CITF was to use a serology "to survey representative samples of the population for the presence of antibodies to the virus". Trudeau's press release on 23 April 2020, on the initiation of the CCITF listed several goals it would help to achieve notably that it would:

Canada's government funded more than $1 billion for research into how to combat COVID-19 through the CITF.

  • $40 million for the COVID-19 Genomics Network
  • $23 million for the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre
  • $29 million for the National Research Council of Canada
  • $600 million through the Strategic Innovation Fund
  • $10.3 million over 10 years, $5 million bonus to support the Canadian Immunization Research Network
  • $114.9 million through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research

A Vaccine Surveillance Reference Group (VSRG) was also established within the CITF to monitor the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines made available in Canada.

The task force was to also estimate how many Canadians were immune to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Findings

Catherine Hankins reported that less than 1% of 10,000 samples tested positive for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2.

The CITF also found that one in 100 Canadians were infected with COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic.

Task Force membership

The CITF Board was composed of doctors, infectious disease experts, and policy makers.

Leadership Group

Executive Committee

Government of Canada representatives

Members

The CCITF leadership group expanded on 2 May 2020. Its additional members as of March 2022 are:

Provincial & Territorial representatives

External links