The South appears to be yet to pass its Covid-19 peak, with more than 1400 new cases to be announced today.
Speaking at a board meeting this morning Southern District Health Board's Covid planning lead Hywel Lloyd said more than 1450 new cases would be reported in the DHB area today.
The Ministry of Health has since reported 1456 new cases in the area today. The SDHB says there are 1454, but says numbers can differ because of different reporting cut-off times and the assignment of cases between regions.
This was the second-highest total for the area, Dr Lloyd said.
The number is a big increase on the 958 cases reported yesterday.
The ministry today said there were 29 people in hospital in the South, and the SDHB said one of those was in ICU.
Dr Lloyd said it was difficult to predict when the peak in terms of cases would be in the area, but it was clear hospitals would be put under more strain with Covid-19 cases than they are at present.
Patients had already needed to be transferred from Southland Hospital to Dunedin Hospital due to a lack of capacity.
Yesterday 33 southerners who had Covid were in hospital, 13 of those in Southland Hospital.
Last week, when seven people were in hospital there, the SDHB said Southland’s dedicated Covid ward was close to capacity and it was making sure provisions were in place if patients had to be transferred to Dunedin Hospital.
However, Dunedin Hospital, with 16 people in its Covid ward and one in intensive care, is also nearing capacity.
Ward 7a can care for up to 24 patients, although it can be expanded by one or two more beds if required.
Dunedin Hospital does have a back-up ward if needed.
Staff are also under pressure as they and colleagues fall ill.
Last Tuesday about 3% of all SDHB staff rostered on were unwell with Covid 19 and/or isolating, and in the Dunedin Hospital emergency department the figure was 5%.
The SDHB did not respond to questions, including whether any Covid-19 patients have had to be transferred, by deadline.
There are also Covid-positive patients in Dunstan (2) and Lakes District Hospital (1).
Another death of someone who had Covid-19 was reported in the South yesterday.
So far 12 people with Covid-19 have died in Otago and Southland during the pandemic, from a national toll of 363.
A further 958 cases of Covid-19 were reported in the SDHB region yesterday, which ranked the region behind only Auckland and Christchurch in terms of most daily cases.
Dunedin recorded 320 new cases, Invercargill 210 and Queenstown-Lakes 138.
Yesterday’s numbers recorded cases reported on Sunday.
Case numbers are usually slightly lower in the weekends as testing rates drop.
On Friday 994 cases were reported in the South, down from a peak of 1634 a week earlier.
Nationally, there were 10,205 new community cases and nine further deaths yesterday.
There were now 734 people in hospital.
In a report to be considered by the SDHB today, chief executive Chris Fleming said Covid-19 related absenteeism was affecting areas of the health system which had few staff.
"Planning/reporting and co-ordinating Covid response activities and supporting emergency co-ordination centre and emergency operations centre functions is also impacting staff and business as usual functions," Mr Fleming said.
"Flow through the hospitals has remained manageable, however at the expense of a reduction in planned care especially those for patients requiring inpatient beds.
"The reduction in inpatient planned care has seen an increase in day surgery cases."
