“I’ll call it a small victory,” Bracebridge’s Mayor Graydon Smith says. “My recommendation of a return to Red-Control is based on information that our overall incidence of COVID-19 has remained stable over the past two weeks despite the rise in the B.1.1.7 (UK) variant,” SMDHU’s Medical Officer of Health Doctor Charles Gardner said Friday in a letter to residents in Simcoe Muskoka. As of Friday’s update from the Health, there are 217 cases of B.1.1.7 in its medical region. Dr. Gardner said that cases of variants of concerns stabilized over the past two weeks. “I think it’s a recognition that hopeful things are getting better and that doing that restriction for a week maybe has helped that situation,” Mayor of Gravenhurst Paul Kelly says. He, along with many other residents and political officials in Muskoka, believes the move to lockdown Simcoe Muskoka wasn’t necessary. He adds that there were people outside of Muskoka that were against this as well.