Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown says that COVID-19 has “become a pandemic of the unvaccinated” and is urging residents to make sure their family, friends and neighbours roll up their sleeves and get a shot if they haven’t already done so.

Brown made the comment during a briefing on Wednesday as he discussed the need to continue to improve Peel Region’s vaccination numbers as Ontario enters step three of its reopening plan later this week.

Currently nearly 79 per cent of Peel residents have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and more than 54 per cent are fully immunized.

“I hope this is the last lockdown we see in Ontario and the best way to ensure that is to make sure that we have vaccination numbers that are the envy of the world,” Brown said. “The more of our population that gets vaccinated the more we're going to be able to ensure that our health care capacity is never threatened again by COVID-19.”

About 83 per cent of all COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in Ontario since May have involved people who were unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated and in Peel that number is even higher – about 90 per cent.

Brown said that while there is some vaccine hesitancy in Peel, he believes that there other more structural issues that have prevented community members from getting their shots.

For that reason, he said that Peel Public Health has begun to put significant resources into staging after-hours clinics, including a 40-hour marathon at Brampton’s Save Max Sports Centre this past weekend in which more than 10,000 doses were administered.

“For those remaining 20 per cent in our community that haven't been vaccinated in some cases it is simply because they haven't had the time. That's why we're trying to make sure there is no shortage of appointments,” he said. “”For the overnight session at Save Max we had some people in the trucking industry come in and say that they couldn’t get time because they are shift work, we had convenience store owners who work from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. that came in at 2 a.m. in the morning because it was the only time they were free so we are going to continue to look at creative ways and creative opportunities to make sure that every segment within our community is vaccinated.”

According to Peel Region Medical Officer Health, Dr. Lawrence Loh there are currently “tens of thousands” of appointments that remain available at vaccine clinics over the next two weeks as supply becomes less and less of an issue.

He said that walk-in appointments are also available at the Save Max Sports Centre and the Paramount Fine Foods Centre from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. and from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m.

“When the cold of fall returns, we will move indoors again and in the context of increased reopening and contact those who are not fully vaccinated will be at an increased risk of severe illness and outcomes with COVID-19 and also at risk of spreading COVID-19 as has been seen elsewhere,” Loh warned. “Any resurgence among the unvaccinated will threaten lives and our hospital and by extension, our communities reopening.”