New figures have confirmed the South is now the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Canterbury and Southern combined totalled more than 3000 daily cases yesterday, dwarfing the 2179 cases reported in the combined Auckland district health board regions.
Only Whanganui has more cases per head of population than Otago and Southland.
The statistics were released on a day when Southern recorded 1157 new cases, the third successive day on which cases topped 1000, although down from a peak of 1456 three days ago.
The region also recorded three deaths, the highest daily death toll to date.
That figure, taken from deaths recorded over the past 10 days, took the southern toll from Covid during this outbreak to 15.
Of the 13 people with Covid-19 being cared for at Dunedin Hospital, two are in intensive care.
Southland Hospital had eight patients with Covid-19 in its wards last night, while Dunstan Hospital had one.
A ward at Southland Hospital also had to be closed yesterday after it was discovered Covid-positive patients had been there.
The assessment, treatment and rehabilitation ward, a service which primarily helps elderly patients, has 30 beds and an associated gym and therapy facilities.
It was not known how the infection had got into the ward, but all staff and patients were being tested, a Southern District Health Board spokeswoman said.
"Patients who have been discovered as Covid-19 positive through PCR testing have been moved to the Covid-19 ward in Southland Hospital."
The board asked anyone who planned to visit a southern hospital to stay away if they were a household Covid contact or if they were a recent close contact of a case.
There have been three earlier Covid outbreaks on southern hospital wards — a mental health ward at Wakari, and gynaecology and cardiac wards at Dunedin Hospital.
The SDHB would not say if any of the recent deaths in the region were linked to 7C, the cardiac ward.
The board yesterday warned people in Invercargill and Southland their region was experiencing a spike in cases.
There were a further 263 cases reported in Invercargill yesterday and 92 in Southland, making up 34% of the SDHB regions’ cases.
Dunedin reported 381 cases and Queenstown-Lakes 162.
Nationally, 11,634 new community cases of Covid-19 were recorded yesterday.
There were an additional 13 deaths recorded in the past 10 days of people who had had Covid, which included the three southern fatalities.
