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

[_Happy boy]

Ontario says supply delays mean it won't meet its goal of giving all nursing-home residents the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Friday.

The province says it will now take until Feb. 10 to give the first shot to all long-term care, high-risk retirement and First Nations eldercare home residents.

The government says it expects to receive about 80 per cent fewer doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine over the first two weeks of this month.

It says shipments are set to return nearly to previously expected levels starting Feb. 15.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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.In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Kamloops This Week is now soliciting donations from readers. This program is designed to support our local journalism in a time where our advertisers are unable to due to their own economic constraints. Kamloops This Week has always been a free product and will continue to be free. This is a means for those who can afford to support local media to help ensure those who can’t afford to can get access to trusted local information. You can make a one-time or a monthly donation of any amount and cancel at any time .