COVID-19 emergency order lifting for Region of Peel

The longest running emergency declaration in the Region of Peel is coming to an end after more than two years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On March 18, 2020, the Region of Peel declared a state of emergency due to the outbreak of COVID-19, leading Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon to follow suit.

The Region is expected to terminate that order on Thursday (March 24), saying “COVID-19 and its related impacts have largely stabilised within the Peel Region.”

“It has been determined that the community conditions and impacts that warranted the Regional Declaration of Emergency on March 18, 2020, have been appropriately mitigated,” Region staff said in a report to council.

Region staff have recommended “the termination of the Regional Declaration of Emergency” as of 11:59 p.m. on Thursday.

Lifting the state of emergency for the Region doesn’t revoke the individual declarations in Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon, but both Mississauga and Caledon revoked their states of emergency earlier this week.

The province began easing COVID-19 restrictions in February, and mandatory mask mandates in most settings were lifted this week in Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon and much of Ontario.

The Region said it is prepared to reinstate “individual-level measures such as masks or booster immunizations” if there is a resurgence of COVID-19 “that threatens public health within the Region.”

“Given the shifting risk context, however, the use of further extraordinary measures to suppress transmission of COVID-19 is not required nor anticipated at this time,” the report reads.

According to data from Peel Public Health (PPH), there have been more than 178,100 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19 in Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon and surrounding areas since the pandemic began.

More than 50,000 of those cases were recorded since mid-December, 2021 when the Omicron variant of the virus began to become the dominant strain.

Some 1,285 Region of Peel residents have died, and nearly 5,000 people were hospitalised due to the virus.

The most recent numbers from PPH show 94.5 per cent of Peel residents over 12 years old have had at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 91.8 per cent have received two doses.

Ninety-one per cent of people over 5 years old have received at least one vaccine shot, and 86.8 per cent have received two doses.

More than 600,000 individuals have also received a third booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and PPH said there were more than 8,100 COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in Peel during the last week.