Thank you very much for the opportunity to present today. I'll say a few words about Canada's COVID-19 Immunity Task Force.
The task force was formed in late April 2020 by the Government of Canada with a two-year mandate. Working virtually, the task force leadership group, co-chaired by doctors Catherine Hankins and David Naylor, is a representative set of volunteer experts from across the country who are focused on understanding the nature of immunity arising from the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and understanding the prevalence of the infection in the general population as well as specific communities and priority populations.
The task force and its secretariat have been working closely with a wide range of partners, including provincial, territorial and federal governments, public health agencies, academic institutions, health organizations, research teams, other task forces, communities and stakeholders.
Most recently, the task force has been asked to take a major role in supporting vaccine surveillance for effectiveness and safety as the rollout of vaccines begins.
Our overriding objective is to generate data and ideas that inform interventions aimed at slowing and ultimately stopping the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the population. We have four areas of focus, which I will describe briefly. These areas of focus are being supported through 55 studies that are currently in the portfolio of the task force.
First are seroprevalence studies, which test for the presence of antibodies that indicate a previous infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These studies are ongoing as we navigate the second wave. They shed light on the level of immunity in the general population, as well as the level of immunity in priority populations such as residents of long-term care facilities, health care workers and racialized communities.
Initial studies with the blood banks in Canada, for example, reveal that at the tail of the first wave of the pandemic in May and June 2020, the level of population immunity in Canada was extremely low, at less than 1%. While that was a great endorsement of public efforts to limit the spread of infection, these low levels of immunity made it abundantly clear that across the country we remained extremely vulnerable to a second wave. Updated results in November 2020, in the midst of the second wave, suggest that while levels of immunity have risen—particularly in the Prairie provinces where they hover around 8% to 9% of the population—we are a long way from herd immunity. As such, accelerated vaccination is an urgent priority to move Canadians towards herd immunity.
A second area of focus is really understanding what immunity against SARS-CoV-2 looks like and how long it lasts. This science is happening alongside the seroprevalence studies. Results from one of the CITF-supported studies has just emerged, indicating that immunity following infection remains strong and protected for at least eight months. As the cohort of infected persons are followed further, we will get more insight on just how long immunity from infection lasts.
A third area of focus relates to immune testing, which includes, for example, research to validate dried blood spot specimen testing with made-in-Canada antibody tests that distinguish vaccine-induced immunity from post-infection immunity. These dried blood spot specimens can be used at home and are now being deployed in studies across the country to gather information about how population immunity is evolving as vaccines are rolled out.
The final area of focus is the newest. This is a focus on vaccine surveillance. The task force is supporting research partners from across Canada in a new collaboration that will monitor vaccine effectiveness and safety in the population at large and in high-priority groups.
Thank you very much.