Dunedin is the only place in the South with more than 100 officially recorded active cases of Covid-19.
The latest regional breakdown of pandemic cases, released by Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand — Southern yesterday, showed that in the past week active cases of Covid had effectively halved in several places.
In Queenstown Lakes, active cases plunged from 171 a week ago to 98 yesterday, while in Gore cases dropped from 48 to 25 and in Waitaki from 56 to 32.
Invercargill went from 155 active cases to 86, while in Clutha cases fell from 33 to just 17.
Dunedin had 267 active cases of Covid-19 yesterday, its lowest number of cases for several months.
Across the region there were a total of 626 active cases, down from 926 a week ago.
Across New Zealand there were 1793 new cases reported yesterday, which amounted to a seven-day rolling average of 1655 new cases: a week ago it was 2122.
A further eight deaths of people who had Covid-19 were reported by the Ministry of Health, none of which were in the South.
Ministry deputy director-general Dr Andrew Old said there was ‘‘real and sustained evidence of Covid-19 declining in our community’’, as both new cases and Covid-related deaths were continuing to fall.
Epidemiological modelling suggested this Covid outbreak would follow the pattern of earlier ones and it would have a long tail of cases.
Dr Old warned that Covid was not a seasonal disease and the advent of spring did not mean the chance of catching Covid had diminished. — Additional reporting RNZ
