In late May Southland Hospital’s medical, surgical and rehabilitation wards were briefly closed to visitors after a series of Covid exposure events, but yesterday visiting was suspended to all inpatient wards, effective immediately.
Te Whatu Ora Southern (TWOS) interim regional director Hamish Brown apologised for the inconvenience to patients and families, but said any outbreaks of the disease needed to be stamped out in the interests of patient and staff safety.
"All necessary steps are being taken to ensure the exposure event is contained," he said.
"This includes closely monitoring patients for signs and symptoms of Covid-19, and ensuring our staff are well when they come to work."
At the start of June Dunedin Hospital was also closed to visitors for a few days after widespread cases of Covid-19 in the facility.
Yesterday 1045 new Covid-19 cases were reported in the South, the highest daily total in Otago and Southland since April 28.
The region’s hospitals remained crammed with Covid cases, facilities caring for 45 people with the virus.
Many of those cases are older people, and TWOS community services general manager Glenn Symon said there had been two distinct waves of Covid infection among residential aged-care residents noted since the end of May.
"Currently, 20 facilities out of 65 in the Southern district have Covid-19 positive residents, a sharp increase from only a few weeks ago when there was a total of seven aged residential care facilities with infections among residents.
"Over the past few months there have been 25-30 facilities with Covid-19 positive staff at any one time, and currently 23 facilities have Covid-19 infections among staff."
As of Wednesday there were 121 residents and 76 staff in southern residential aged-care facilities confirmed to have Covid-19, Mr Symon said.
"Both facility staff and Te Whatu Ora staff continue to offer care and support to residents in a very high-pressure, evolving situation.
"All staff should be commended for their effort and dedication to providing the best care and support to aged residential care residents across the Southern district."
Nationally, 11,382 new cases were reported yesterday: Southern had the highest number of cases after Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
A further 23 deaths of people who had Covid-19 were reported, one of which was in Southern.
Yesterday director-general of health Ashley Bloomfield said officials believed that only about half of the cases in New Zealand were actually being reported.
Covid-19 response minister Ayesha Verrall announced a range of measures intended to slow the rate of new cases, which included free rapid antigen tests and masks for all, and an extension of the eligibility criteria for Covid-19 medication.
"Our modelling suggests we’re at the beginning of a second Omicron wave that could be bigger than the first, with the more transmissible BA.5 variant becoming the dominant strain in the community," Dr Verrall said.
"There has been a significant increase in cases over the past two weeks, and worryingly the biggest jump is in cases among New Zealanders aged 65 and over. That in turn has led to an increase in hospital occupancy."
Dr Verrall implored all New Zealanders to do three things: get vaccinated, wear a mask in many or most indoor settings and stay at home when sick.
