Masks will continue to be required inside public spaces in Mississauga until at least the end of March.

The city's mandatory mask bylaw, which covers all indoor settings where the public ordinarily visits, was set to expire on Sept. 30 but during a meeting on Wednesday Mississauga council voted in favour of its extension until March 31.

The decision comes a few weeks after Peel Region Medical Officer of Health Dr. Lawrence Loh wrote an open letter to the mayors of Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon urging them to extend their respective mandatory mask bylaws "to help reduce the impact of the fourth wave."

"As we continue to respond to COVID-19 in our community, we have to do everything possible to stop the spread and wearing a mask, especially indoors, is one way we can continue to do our part," Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie said in a press release issued on Thursday. "As we enter the fall, we expect that more people will start spending more time indoors which is why I am very supportive of Dr. Loh's recommendation to extend the face mask by-law to March 2022."

Loh says Peel is in 'most turbulent point of pandemic'

The decision by Mississauga city councillors to extend the mask mandates comes as Loh warns residents that Peel is now in the "most turbulent point of the pandemic" with roughly 77 per cent of its population vaccinated but more than 300,000 eligible residents still without protection.

"That keeps me up at night knowing that our hospital could yet again see capacity challenges, and that lives are at stake. So I ask all of our residents: please get your vaccines and please continue to follow precautions," he said during a briefing at Mississauga City Hall on Thursday morning. "We all want the same thing. We all want to be back to normal. But at this point with so many people who still remain susceptible, it's absolutely crucial that we remain vigilant. We have seen in jurisdictions in Canada and elsewhere that if we throw up our hands too early and live like COVID-19 is gone, COVID-19 will very quickly remind us that it hasn't run out of steam just yet."

Peel's case counts have been mostly unchanged over the last two weeks, with the region's rolling seven-day average now standing at 88 compared to 85 on Sept. 2.

"If we want to return to a world without health measures or restrictions, we need to keep working together to get vaccinated and to keep each other safe until this virus is no longer novel to our population," he said.

The mandatory mask bylaw in Toronto is currently set to expire following a meeting of council scheduled for Sept 30 and Oct. 1, though all signs point to it being extended sometime prior to that.

Most of the municipal mask bylaws across the GTA, including the ones in Toronto and Mississauga, have been in effect since July 2020.