By Canadian Press

The latest news on COVID 19 developments in Canada for Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2021

Feb 2, 2021 | 8:30 AM

The latest news on COVID-19 developments in Canada (all times eastern):

11:25 a.m.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government has inked a deal that will see COVID-19 vaccines churned out on home soil.

Trudeau says the federal government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Novavax to start producing immunization doses at the U.S. company’s Royalmount facility in Montreal.

The Novavax vaccine is currently under review by Health Canada and, if approved, would eventually leave Canada less reliant on foreign production for the most sought-after product in the world.

SOUND OFF

SOUND OFF: Removing bathroom doors at Barriere Secondary increases safety concerns

Apr 02, 2026

Looped In

LOOPED IN WITH NIKKI OMEN: April 2, 2026

Apr 02, 2026

SOUND OFF

SOUND OFF: Kamloops deserves the full story

Apr 01, 2026

Trudeau also says the government is investing $25 million in Vancouver-based Precision NanoSystems to build a manufacturing centre, with the ultimate goal of producing up to 240 million vaccine doses per year.

—

11:20 a.m.

Ontario’s daily COVID-19 case count is lower than expected because of a data issue.

Ontario is reporting 745 new cases of the virus today, which it says does not include data from Toronto as the city transfers its information to the provincial database system. 

The Ministry of Health says it anticipates fluctuations in case numbers over the next few days as the databases are reconciled.

Ontario also says that case counts for other public health units might have been affected by system outages related to the migration.

—

11:15 a.m.

Quebec is reporting 1,053 new COVID-19 infections and 38 more deaths attributed to the novel coronavirus, including seven in the previous 24 hours.

The numbers come ahead of an evening news conference during which Premier François Legault is expected to ease restrictions across the province.

Health officials said today hospitalizations dropped by 34, to 1,110, and 178 people were in intensive care, a drop of five.

Quebec has reported a total of 264,526 cases and 9,862 deaths linked to the virus.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 2, 2021.

The Canadian Press