Cases of Covid-19 in southern aged residential care facilities are rising sharply and concerning health officials.
Figures presented to the Southern District Health Board three weeks ago showed the previous peak for active aged residential care cases was 82, on March 21, before declining to about 50.
However, the virus continued to infiltrate care homes, SDHB Covid response lead Dr Hywel Lloyd said.
"Last week we saw the greatest increase in cases in aged residential care that we have had throughout the outbreak.
"That is naturally a big concern since they are our most vulnerable."
Yesterday 146 aged residential care residents were Covid-positive, as were about 100 staff.
"The DHB is in regular contact with facilities and they are balancing keeping the residents safe by screening visitors but balancing that with the social needs of residents," Dr Lloyd said.
Overall daily case numbers in the South have surged in recent days — 1346 new cases were reported yesterday, following a spike of 1410 on Wednesday.
Public health officials believed cases in the South were at a high plateau, possibly due to the region’s size, and were hopeful they would soon decrease.
"But if we keep this plateau high then the more cautious managers of aged residential care are, because they are looking for numbers to be dropping off so that they can perhaps relax their visiting rules because they are still being quite restrictive," Dr Lloyd said.
"That means they are not getting the social interaction with their family, whanau and loved ones that they need."
Dr Lloyd said facilities were managing despite high levels of staff absence.
Presbyterian Support Otago chief executive Jo Rowe said the organisation’s eight facilities were coping but were under severe pressure.
"We have about 40 staff missing due to Covid ... with other absences we are well and truly under the pump across all of Presbyterian Support," she said.
"The staff that we have got have done a phenomenal job in keeping Covid at bay and I think across our homes we only have two which have resident cases of Covid."
Resident case numbers were climbing, though, and the need for those people to be cared for in isolation was a significant extra demand to meet, Ms Rowe said.
"We are continuing to get cases and we need to manage that carefully ..."
Of the 1346 new cases reported yesterday, 431 were in Dunedin, 307 in Invercargill and 175 in Queenstown Lakes.
High case numbers continued to be reported in the provinces: Southland reported 138 new cases, Central Otago 105 and Waitaki 8.
There was a welcome drop in Covid-19 hospital admissions in the region, down to 33 from yesterday’s record high of 40.
Of those, 24 were in hospital in Dunedin, seven in Southland Hospital and two in Dunstan, and no cases were in intensive care.
Nationally, a further 10,294 community cases of Covid-19 were reported yesterday as well as 18 deaths, none of which were in the South.
Only Southern, the combined Auckland DHBs (2274) and Canterbury (1682) reported case numbers in the thousands.
