Health officials across the country also confirmed 93 more people have died after testing positive for COVID-19.
To date, 14,425 people have died in Canada after contracting the respiratory illness.
The new cases and deaths come as the country works to determine if a new, potentially more transmissible strain of the virus which has been spreading rapidly in the U.K., has made its way to Canada.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said officials are “still looking” and will be conducting more testing and genomic sequencing on known cases of the strain in the coming days.
Tam said it wouldn’t be surprising if the variant is in many countries, adding that “it may become one of the more common strains” of the virus.
On Sunday, Canada joined several other European countries which imposed travel restrictions in an effort to stem the spread of the strain outside of Britain.
Canada announced it would be halting all flights from the U.K. for 72 hours.
[ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ]
However, the World Health Organization on Monday said while the new variant may be more transmissible, the newly approved vaccines should still be effective against it.
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19, told reporters during a press briefing that there is no evidence to suggest the new variant would increase the “severity associated with this disease.”
New cases in the provinces
In Ontario, 2,202 new cases and 21 more fatalities were reported.
To date, the province has seen 160,255 infections and 4,188 deaths related to COVID-19.
Read more:
Canada hasn’t identified the U.K. COVID-19 strain yet — but it’s a ‘probability’, Tam says
Meanwhile, in Quebec, 2,183 new cases were detected, bringing the province’s total number of infections to 181,276.
Twenty-eight new deaths mean the virus has now claimed 7,794 lives in the province.
Manitoba saw 155 new cases of the virus, and health authorities said eight more people have died after testing positive for COVID-19.
To date, Manitoba has seen 23,180 cases and 590 fatalities.
Health authorities in Saskatchewan detected 181 new cases of the novel coronavirus, bringing the province’s total number of infections to 13,942.
Three new fatalities mean a total of 125 people have died in Saskatchewan after contracting the virus.
Health officials in Atlantic Canada reported 10 new cases of the virus on Tuesday.
Nova Scotia saw seven new cases, while New Brunswick reported two new infections. Neither province added any new deaths.
To date, Nova Scotia has reported 1,454 COVID-19 infections and 65 deaths, while New Brunswick has seen 580 cases and 8 fatalities.
Prince Edward Island did not report any new cases or deaths on Tuesday. So far the province has seen 91 cases of the virus, 84 of which are considered to be recovered.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, one new COVID-19 infection was detected, bringing the total number of cases in the province to 383. However, health officials said the total death toll remained at four.
In western Canada, 1,460 new infections were reported.
Alberta added 1,021 new COVID-19 cases and health officials confirmed 11 more people have died.
The province has now recorded 92,480 infections and 871 deaths since the pandemic began.
Meanwhile, British Columbia, 439 more cases and 12 new deaths were detected.
So far, B.C. has seen 47,087 confirmed cases and 777 deaths associated with the virus.
The province also reported five new epidemiologically-linked cases, meaning they have not yet been confirmed by a lab.
No new cases in the territories
None of Canada’s territories detected any new cases or deaths associated with COVID-19 on Tuesday.
To date, Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories have reported 262, 59, and 24 cases respectively.
Nunavut has seen two deaths to date, while the Yukon has reported one fatality.
Global cases near 78 million
The number of novel coronavirus cases around the world neared 78 million on Tuesday.
By 7 p.m. ET, there were a total of 77,908,804 cases globally, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.
Since the virus was first detected in China late last year, it has claimed 1,714,454 lives.
The United States remained the viral epicentre on Tuesday, with over 18 million confirmed infections and 322,208 fatalities.
India has reported the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases, with more than 10 million infections.
So far, the country has seen 146,111 fatalities related to the novel coronavirus.
-With a file from Global News’ Emerald Bensadoun
© 2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
