Otago and Southland yesterday recorded its lowest number of new Covid-19 cases on a Friday since mid-February.
There were 251 new cases reported yesterday, a number which would have seemed appallingly high a year ago.
However, it was the lowest Friday case number in the South since 35 new cases were reported on February 18, just as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 was starting to sweep across the region.
Although offering encouragement that the worst of the Omicron wave is over — last Friday 414 new cases were reported and four weeks ago it was 770 — public health officials have long warned that case numbers are being under-reported, something borne out by wastewater testing.
The decline in Covid cases was backed up by the latest breakdown of cases across the region.
In Dunedin there were 1000 active cases of Covid-19 yesterday — a fortnight ago there were 1917.
Almost every other region has experienced a drop in active cases since last Friday, in some cases a marked drop.
Invercargill had 403 active cases yesterday, down from 643, and Queenstown-Lakes had 232, down from 402.
Clutha was the only place to buck that trend, its 133 cases being 17 more than last Friday.
Te Whatu Ora-Southern urged people who were recovering from Covid-19 to take it easy, as people on the mend from the disease often found themselves tired or short of breath.
It also warned people to be on the lookout for the symptoms of long Covid, which could be an issue if complaints such as a cough, sore throat, chest tightness or chest pain persisted longer than three months.
"For support with the management and treatment of long Covid, seek help from your doctor or health-care team," a spokeswoman said.
"Covid-19 health care is fully funded for up to six weeks from the first day of your symptoms or the day you test positive, whichever is earlier."
Nationally, 4126 new cases of Covid-19 were reported by the Ministry of Health yesterday.
It also reported that 13 more people who had Covid-19 had died, three of whom were in Otago and Southland.
The three deaths took the Southern death toll from the pandemic to 150 people.
There were 46 people across Otago and Southland in hospital yesterday who had Covid-19. They were in Dunedin (23), Southland (15), Gore (3), Lakes (2), Dunstan (2) and Oamaru (1).
