Health officials in the provinces also confirmed 25 more people have died after testing positive for COVID-19.
In a series of tweets Monday, Canada’s top doctor Theresa Tam, said Canada is “at a crossroads of controlling non-variant COVID-19 spread” and the “increasing new variant cases,” particularly in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.
“Our progress has stalled,” she wrote, adding that case counts have increased.
Tam said as vaccination efforts expand in the weeks and months to come, “things will get easier,” but she urged Canadians to continue to abide by public health measures to stem the spread of the virus.
“Please don’t drop the baton!” Tam wrote.
Speaking at a press conference in Montreal on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged Canadians to take the first vaccine that is offered to them.
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His comments come as several European countries suspended the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford COVID-19 vaccine over reports of blood clots.
Trudeau said Health Canada regulators are constantly analyzing all the available information about vaccines and have guaranteed those approved in Canada are safe for use.
“Health Canada and our experts and scientists have spent an awful lot of time making sure every vaccine approved in Canada is both safe and effective,” he told reporters.
“Therefore, the very best vaccine for you to take is the first one that is offered to you.”
In a statement emailed to Global News on Sunday, Health Canada said at this time, “there is no indication that the vaccine caused these events.”
“To date, no adverse events related to the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, or the version manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, have been reported to Health Canada or the Public Health Agency of Canada,” the email read.
New cases, deaths in the provinces
In Ontario, 1,268 new cases of the coronavirus and nine more deaths were detected.
Meanwhile, health officials reported 594 more infections in Quebec and said 10 more people have died.
Saskatchewan saw 107 new cases of the virus, while 50 more people have fallen ill in Manitoba. Neither province reported any new deaths on Monday.
In Atlantic Canada, only one new case of the coronavirus was detected in New Brunswick.
No new deaths were reported in any of the Maritime provinces, or in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In western Canada, hundreds more people have contracted the disease.
British Columbia added 460 new COVID-19 cases, and provincial health authorities confirmed three more people have died.
Meanwhile, in Alberta, 364 more people tested positive for COVID-19, and three more deaths were reported.
No new cases were reported in any of Canada’s territories on Monday and health officials confirmed no one else has died.
Global cases top 120 million
Globally, more than 120 million people have been infected with the novel coronavirus, according to the latest tally from Johns Hopkins University.
By Monday afternoon the total number of COVID-19 cases worldwide was 120,176,364.
Since the virus was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019, more than 2.6 million people have died after testing positive for the disease.
The United States remained the viral epicentre on Monday, with over 29.4 million infections and more than 535,400 fatalities associated with the respiratory illness.
-With files from The Canadian Press
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