The Ministry of Health reported 32 Covid-19 cases in hospital for the South yesterday, up from 25 on Sunday and 29 on Saturday, but not creeping to as high as the 40 reported on Wednesday last week.
Nationally, 10 deaths of people with Covid-19 were reported, including one from the South.
A death reported at the weekend of a child aged under 9 was now not linked to Covid-19 and it has been removed from the tally.
In the South, total new cases of Covid-19 identified in the community fell below 1000 at the end of last week, but rebounded slightly yesterday to 766.
New case numbers tend to be lower at the weekend.
Nationally, 514 people were in hospital with Covid-19 yesterday.
The number of people in intensive care, or a high-dependency unit, was 18.
The total number of new community cases in New Zealand was 5690.
University of Otago epidemiologist Prof Michael Baker has said between five and 15 people a day could die with Covid-19 for months and a second wave of the Omicron variant could be under way.
Officials announced on Saturday they had detected the first case of the new Omicron XE subvariant.
