The COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) is one of the Government of Canada's early efforts to track the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. An external, dedicated secretariat will established in order to maximize the efficiency of the CITF's work.
Task Force membership
The CITF Board is composed of doctors, infectious disease experts, and policy makers.
Leadership Group
Executive Committee
- David Naylor, Co-chair
- Catherine Hankins, Co-chair
- Timothy Evans, Executive Director
- Heather Hannah
- Mona Nemer
- Howard Njoo
- Gina Ogilvie
- Jutta Preiksaitis
- Gail Tomblin Murphy
- Paul Van Caeseele
Government of Canada representatives
- Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada
- Mona Nemer, Chief Science Advisor of Canada
- Stephen Lucas, Deputy Minister of Health of Canada
Members
The CCITF leadership group expanded on 2 May 2020. Its additional members as of March 2022 are:
Provincial & Territorial representatives
- Shelly Bolotin, Ontario
- Marguerite Cameron, Prince Edward Island
- Catherine Elliott, Yukon
- Richard Garceau, New Brunswick
- Heather Hannah, Northwest Territories
- Mel Krajden, British Columbia
- Christie Lutsiak, Alberta
- Richard Massé, Quebec
- Jessica Minion, Saskatchewan
- Michael Patterson, Nunavut
- Gail Tomblin Murphy, Nova Scotia
- Paul Van Caeseele, Manitoba
Purpose and goals
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:
establish priorities and oversee the coordination of a series of country-wide blood test surveys that will tell us how widely the virus has spread in Canada and provide reliable estimates of potential immunity and vulnerabilities in Canadian populations.
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.
