Invercargill is now officially the South’s Covid-19 hot spot.
Yesterday, the city claimed that dubious honour after it recorded more daily cases than Dunedin for the first time.
A week ago, it was third in regional daily case numbers behind Dunedin and Queenstown Lakes.
It recorded 390 cases on Monday, ahead of 348 in Dunedin and 192 in Queenstown-Lakes.
Combined with 154 cases being reported in rural Southland yesterday, that showed there was a significant spread of the virus across Southland, Southern District Health Board acting quality and clinical governance solutions director Dr Hywel Lloyd said.
There were 1828 active cases in Invercargill yesterday and a further 878 in Southland.
The surging case numbers resulted in a rise in admissions of Covid-positive patient to Southland Hospital, which last night was caring for seven of the 23 southerners in hospital.
"We still have bed capacity there, although we were talking this morning about making sure that we had all the processes in place in case we needed to actually move people around the region in case beds were to become tight in one particular area," Dr Lloyd said.
"We are hoping that we will be able to keep people in Southland and not have to move them to Dunedin.
"We are trying to keep people close to their families and we do have further capacity in Southland if we need it."
Overall cases across Otago and Southland yesterday were 1404, which suggested the region had not reached its case numbers peak, Dr Lloyd said.
Invercargill health provider Nga Kete chief executive Tracey Wright-Tawha said its services were not swamped, but were under severe pressure.
"Our GP practice was already working seven days a week so anyone who needed care was able to get it," she said.
"Our community connectors are probably getting 10-12 referrals a day, up from five or six day, and the number of unenrolled patients who we are supporting has also gone up markedly in the past week."
Nga Kete was working with about 250 families who were being affected by Covid-19, Ms Wright-Tawha said.
Nationally, 17,148 new Covid-19 cases were reported yesterday as well as a record 34 deaths, although that figure was an accumulation of fatalities from the previous 10 days, the Ministry of Health said.
One of those deaths was in the SDHB region, although no further details were revealed.
