A record 34 southerners with Covid-19 were in hospital yesterday, two of them in intensive care.
Hospitalisations across Otago and Southland have previously been as high as 33, on April 4, but six days ago were down to 24.
Epidemiologists have regularly reinforced that a regional peak in hospitalisations should come about a fortnight after the peak in cases.
The Southern District Health Board region recorded its highest case numbers, 1631, on March 23, but daily reported Covid-19 case numbers have remained high.
Yesterday, 12% of New Zealand’s 8270 new cases were in Southern, which reported 989 new infections.
There are 6432 active cases of Covid-19 in Otago and Southland, which is also 12% of the national active case total, 53,066.
The southernmost DHB comprises about 6.5% of the national population.
Of the 34 people in hospital, 24 were in Dunedin Hospital (one in intensive care), eight in Southland Hospital (one in intensive care), and one apiece in Waitaki and Dunstan.
Five more deaths of people who had Covid-19 were reported by the Ministry of Health yesterday, none of which were in the South: the region’s pandemic death toll stands at 17.
Dunedin (367) and Invercargill (211) continue to be at the forefront of reported daily cases.
However, there are substantial numbers of active cases in the regions: Southland (606), Central Otago (525), Clutha (294), Waitaki (264) and Gore (196).
There has been a drop in active cases in Queenstown-Lake, from 971 before the holiday weekend to 760 yesterday.
Most parts of Otago and Southland hosted many out of town visitors at the weekend, but disease modelers have warned it would take at least a week for any evidence of that having contributed to the spread of Covid-19 showing up in daily case numbers.
