Whereas the current Region of Peel Emergency Plan is largely focused on incidents causing physical harm to people and infrastructure;
And whereas, the COVID-19 Virus Pandemic has not harmed any infrastructure, rather sickened and killed many people and frightened the entire population of Peel and Canada;
And whereas, the recent Ontario SARS epidemic resulted in the SARS Commission, 2004 Report and many of the recommendations have not been fully implemented;
And whereas, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board has warned that the world has neither the capacity to end the current pandemic in the near future, nor to prevent the next one, and emphasized the need to strengthen the ecosystem of epidemic preparedness and response;
And whereas, the emergency measures necessary to deal with an epidemic are entirely different from those useful to address incidents causing physical harm to people and infrastructure such as floods and explosions;
Therefore be it resolved, that Peel Emergency Management staff and Peel Public Health staff be directed to begin work jointly to draft a table of contents for an epidemic emergency preparedness and response plan.