For Immediate Release
March 5, 2021
STATEMENT: Mayor Bonnie Crombie’s Response to Peel Region Moving into the Province’s Grey Lockdown Zone
“Today the Government of Ontario lifted the Stay-at-Home Order in Peel and moved our Region into the Grey Lockdown Zone. This decision was made following the recommendation from Peel Region’s Medical Officer of Health (MOH), in an effort to reduce the number of variant cases in Peel Region.
The past two weeks I had been advocating for Mississauga to move into the Red Zone within the Province’s COVID -19 framework, and I was extremely optimistic that the downward trend we had seen in our numbers would continue.
That optimistic outlook took a slight hit after receiving new data from Peel Public Health earlier this week. Based on that data, I understand why Peel Region will open in the Grey Lockdown Zone this coming Monday, March 8th at 12:01 a.m., not the Red Zone as I had hoped.
The Grey Lockdown Zone will give us the opportunity to see how our COVID-19 case numbers play out, allowing us to balance the need to protect the community while also allowing many of our small businesses to reopen and recover.
Not all of our businesses will be able to open though, which is why I will be asking Dr. Loh to review our indices every week in the hope that we can progress to the Red Zone and beyond, which would allow all of our small businesses to reopen in some capacity. I truly believe that the current trend in the wrong direction is temporary and will begin to turn around in the coming days and weeks.
Our small business community has had to pay an incredible price during this pandemic and are faced with an unfair and inequitable situation where neighbouring regions –literally across the street from Mississauga – have been allowed to open more fully in the Red Zone, while we are not.
We will, however, continue to heed the advice of Dr. Loh and follow the science to protect the health and wellbeing of all Mississaugans. Moving into the Grey Zone may very well give us the best chance at keeping variants at bay and give us additional time to vaccinate more people in our community.
I have called on the Province of Ontario to prioritize the hot zones, including Peel, Mississauga and Toronto, for their vaccine allocation based on an ethical basis – not by population – and I am pleased to see that the Premier announced that direction today. I’m optimistic that our cases will continue to decline and we will move forward in the Province’s colour coded framework.
For now, we must remain vigilant and continue listening to the advice our health experts.”
– Bonnie Crombie, Mayor of Mississauga
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