Marathon asks to be excluded from lockdown

The town of Marathon, Ont., is asking to be let out of lockdown in the province's COVID-19 response framework.

Town council passed a special resolution Monday asking to be returned to the red zone if the lockdown in Thunder Bay district extends past March 15.

The entire district was placed in the grey or lockdown, zone Monday, due in part to soaring case numbers in the city of Thunder Bay. The district had 376 active cases of the disease on Monday and 29 people in hospital. 

But Marathon is 300 km from the city of Thunder Bay and has no active COVID cases, so it shouldn't be faced with the same restrictions, mayor Rick Dumas told CBC. 

"Why are we all, our business community and our recreation facilities, being punished?" Dumas said.

"There is impacts on the small business community [going] from the red to the grey, like your hairdressing shops, your restaurants."

The community would also like to keep its pool and recreational facilities open in order to support young people's mental health by giving them somewhere to hang out, he said.

Northwestern Ontario isn't like southern Ontario, Dumas said, where inconsistent protocols from city to city resulted in people commuting from places that were harder hit by the virus to places with looser restrictions. 

"Somebody's going to come to Marathon to get a haircut — you know at a three or four hour drive and then a three or four hour drive home — well I say I just can't believe that would happen."

Council has sent the resolution to the province and the medical officer of health for Thunder Bay district, Dumas said. 

He is now waiting to hear back from them.