Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie says that Peel Region has now entered the “homestretch” of its vaccine rollout having already announced plans to close two mass vaccination clinics.

The mass vaccination clinic at the International Centre will close as of July 26 and another operated by Trillium Health Partners at the University of Toronto’s Mississauga will wrap up its operations the following day.

During a briefing on Thursday, Crombie said that Peel Public Health will also be providing updates in “the coming weeks” on when other mass vaccination clinics in the region will cease operations.

The closures come as Peel Region gets set to cross the 80 per cent partially vaccinated threshold among eligible residents (12 plus) sometime in the next day or so. More than 59 per cent of eligible residents are now fully vaccinated.

“Public health has already begun transitioning resources away from our mass vaccination clinics to focus on targeting those areas and our communities who haven't yet received their shots and I want to be very clear: this is a good news story and it shows that our mass vaccination clinics have done their job getting the majority of our people vaccinated,” Crombie said. “We can now look at this period as the homestretch of our initial vaccine rollout to get to that final 10 to 20 per cent of our population and ensure that they too are vaccinated. It includes close collaboration with primary care offices, pharmacies in targeted areas, small pop up clinics with priority bookings and the continuation of homebound vaccinations and drive-thru clinics.”

Weekly briefings to be put on hold

Crombie has been holding weekly briefings alongside Peel’s Medical Officer of Health Dr. Lawrence Loh throughout the pandemic but she confirmed on Thursday that the scheduled updates will now be put on hold for the summer as the COVID-19 situation continues to improve in the city.

Crombie, however, said that residents should still be “vigilant” and remember that the “loosening of restrictions comes with great individual and collective responsibility.”

“I'm excited for all of our residents that we are now doing more of the things that are essential to our health and to our wellbeing, I'm excited that our business owners have now opened their doors to more customers but I really can't say this enough. Please remain vigilant. We saw these similar numbers last year and we had a second and then a third wave. Of course, we didn't have the vaccine then,” she said, as she urged residents who haven’t already been vaccinated to roll up their sleeves.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore has suggested that the province should be striving to get 90 per cent of eligible residents vaccinated in order to avoid a surge in cases in the fall brought about by the more transmissible Delta variant.