Brampton mayor calls on Ford government for faster reopening

With the number of COVID-19 patients in hospital declining, Brampton’s mayor is calling on the Ontario government to speed up the province’s reopening process.

“The pace of the reopening, it could be faster,” said Mayor Patrick Brown during his weekly press briefing. “There are ongoing repercussions from reopening that is too slow.”

Brown pointed to the reopening of schools in January as proof that resuming normal activities can be possible.

“It hasn’t caused repercussions on the health care system by having children in school, and I think we really need to look at other aspects of this lockdown that continue to have repercussions in society that are unwarranted.”

The Brampton mayor spoke of his elderly grandmother, who lives in a long-term care home, as a further reason for loosening restrictions.

“My grandmother is 107 years old, and I can’t see her. She’s had COVID. She is double-vaxxed with a booster. I’m double-vaxxed with a booster and I can’t hold my grandmother’s hand, I can’t give her a hug,” said Brown.

“The decline I’ve seen in my own grandmother over the last two years has been more significant than at any time in her life and I believe part of that contributing factor is not having that social interaction. There’s a mental health toll to that, there’s a quality-of-life toll.”

Ontario’s current reopening plan saw restaurants, gyms and theatres resume at partial capacity on January 31. The roadmap calls for further loosening of restrictions on February 21 and March 14, but Brown believes those dates need to be bumped up.

“We’ve lost two small businesses in Brampton alone this month. We have got restaurants that are at half capacity, we’ve got small businesses that are continuing to be extremely strained in terms of capacity limits. Given the hospital picture I simply don’t see a basis for that.”

COVID-19 hospitalizations falling rapidly in Brampton

The number of patients in Brampton Civic Hospital with COVID-19 has fallen rapidly in recent weeks, as the Omicron-driven wave of the virus begins to weaken.

Two weeks ago, 110 patients with COVID-19 were being treated at at the hospital. Wednesday, that number had fallen to 38, with nine patients in intensive care.

“This is the type of decline we haven’t seen at any point during the pandemic, and so it very encouraging that our hospital capacity is just not stable, it is strong,” said Brown.

Officials at Peel Public Health continue to monitor many of those key trends, more than a week after the first round of restrictions were loosened.

“Trends do continue to improve as we continue in this period of transition,” said Dr. Lawrence Loh, Medical Officer of Health for Peel Region.

“It’s very clear that the collective efforts of our community to get vaccinated and boosted are really making a difference.”

Nearly 1,400 vaccines were administered last Saturday at a Doses After Dark clinic at Brampton’s Save Max Sports Centre. A quarter of those vaccinations were administered to young children.

“We’re now rapidly approaching the milestone of 50 per cent children in Peel with a first dose, 5 to 11, and we’ve also now surpassed the milestone of 90 per cent of our 5-plus population with first dose in our community,” said Loh.

A second Doses After Dark clinic will be held February 12 at Mississauga’s Rockwood Mall. A Boosters Before Bedtime event is also in the works and will be held in Caledon over the Family Day weekend.

Appointments for the events can be made through the province’s online booking portal and walk-ins will also be welcomed.