Peel enters Second Dose Coast to Coast Challenge

By Rob Paul

With Step Two of Ontario's reopen now more than a week in, Peel and Caledon are continuing to see total weekly cases decreasing as vaccination coverage increases.

Before entering Step Three of the reopening plan, the Province has to wait at least 21 days past June 30 to evaluate the situation, but has already surpassed vaccination targets to advance to that point.

As of July 6, the Region sits at 111,441 total COVID-19 cases—139 more cases in the last seven days, a nearly 30 case decrease from the last seven-day cycle. There have been three more COVID related deaths in Peel over the last week bringing the Region to a total of 816.

In Caledon, there's been just two more cases of COVID in the last week to bring the Town's total to 4,440 with no additional deaths.

The improving COVID situation can be traced to the Region's vaccination efforts.

As of July 5, 1,786,976 doses have been administered with 187,565 between June 27 and July 4. 

In total, 1,170,794 total residents in Peel have at least one dose with 616,182 having completed the vaccination process—that's 153,570 people who have received their second dose in Peel since last week.

The 75 per cent threshold is on the horizon for total Peel residents who have initiated their vaccination—the region has 67 per cent of residents with one dose and 36.6 per cent with both doses.

Peel Medical Officer of Health Dr. Lawrence Loh has previously stated that a safe full reopen of the Region becomes realistic once that 75 per cent threshold is crossed.

The most promising number for Peel is 78.2 per cent of adults have at least one dose with 44.6 fully vaccinated.

To help motivate people to be as active as they can with getting their second dose of the vaccine, Peel Region has entered into a challenge with Calgary.

The Second Dose Coast to Coast Challenge is a part of the mission to increase second dose coverage across Canada. It encourages Canadians to get involved in the fight to get through the pandemic by getting their second dose as quickly as possible.

Dr. Loh has challenged 19 to Zero Chair—a Canadian coalition dedicated to education on COVID-19 and vaccines— Dr. Jia Hu and his team from Calgary to see who can get their residents more excited about getting back to a normal and active summer and increasing second dose coverage in their community.

“We all want to put the pandemic behind us,” Hu said. “The sooner we all get our second dose, the sooner we can get back to doing what we love. A little friendly competition to get us to our vaccination goal will help us take back our summer.”

As Ontario continues to open while dealing with the Delta variant, this challenge is to help everyone get back to normal and book their second dose as soon as they can for themselves and their community.

Other health units across Canada have been invited to participate by challenging another unit to a friendly competition as well.

“We're challenging health units across the country to help take back our summer by getting their second dose as soon as possible,” said Loh. “We need Canadians to step up and get their second dose so we can increase broad coverage across the country and protect each other.”

An all-night clinic will wrap up the challenge on July 10 and 11 at the Save Max Sports Centre in Brampton. The clinic is to help support those in the Peel community who are only available during late-night hours to get vaccinated. 

Residents can book their second dose appointments at peelregion.ca/coronavirus/vaccine/book-appointment/ and are encouraged to share a picture of their second dose and tag @regionofpeel and use #2dosechallenge.