Canada to test for coronavirus antibodies as debt forecast to reach 1t dollar

As the COVID-19 pandemic could push Canada's debt into the trillion-Canadian-dollar territory, the country took an important step to identify immunity from the novel coronavirus disease.

On Tuesday night, the Canadian government's health department announced that it had authorized the first COVID-19 serological test -- the Italian-made DiaSorin LIAISON approved in the United States last month -- for use in Canadian laboratories to detect antibodies specific to the virus.

A COVID-19 immunity task force, established by the government in late April, will oversee the collection and testing of at least one million blood samples from across Canada over the next two years to track the spread of the virus within the general population as well as in groups of people at greater risk of contracting COVID-19, such as the elderly and healthcare workers.

The serological tests will examine the effectiveness of antibodies, which appear days or weeks following an infection, in providing someone with protection from reinfection, and for what duration, said Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer, at the government's daily COVID-19 briefing on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Canada's National Research Council also announced a collaboration with Chinese company CanSino Biologics, Inc., to produce a vaccine which is currently in human clinical trials.

Elsewhere in Canada, a team at the Lawson Health Research Institute is attempting a world first in treating seriously ill COVID-19 patients with a form of dialysis by removing a patient's blood, reprogramming the white blood cells associated with inflammation and returning them to combat the heightened immune response.

On the economic side, a wide range of COVID-related relief packages provided by the government could lead to the federal debt rising to more than 638 billion U.S. dollars, or about 17,000 dollars for every adult and child in Canada, the country's Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux warned on Tuesday.

It is "possible and realistic" that Canada's debt could reach one trillion Canadian dollars, or 709 billion U.S. dollars, by this time next year, Giroux told the House of Commons standing committee on finance.

Due to the pandemic crisis, the government delayed releasing a budget this year, but last year's projection of the national treasury's debt for the 2020-21 fiscal year is 514 billion U.S. dollars.

Giroux, who is accountable to the parliament, called on the Canadian government to provide a fiscal update on the massive emergency spending spree.

"The situation is changing incredibly rapidly," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during his daily COVID-19 news conference on Wednesday when asked about the state of the country's finances.

"A budget is usually something that projects what's going to happen in the Canadian economy for the next 12 months, and right now, we're having a lot of difficulty establishing with any certainty what's going to happen in the next 12 weeks," Trudeau said.