Southern records deadliest week

There have been three deaths of people with Covid-19 reported in Southland and Otago yesterday – the most reported in the region in a single day.

There have now been 28 deaths related to the virus in the Southern District Health Board catchment area since the start of the pandemic, with eight reported in the past four days.

This comes as 721 community cases of Covid-19 were reported in the district yesterday with 31 patients in Southern hospitals with the virus – down from 36 on Thursday.

Ministry of Health data shows 22 of the 28 death were in people aged 70 and older while 27 of the people were classified as European or Other.

The ministry cannot provide a further breakdown because of privacy concerns.

Southern DHB Covid-19 lead Dr Hywel Lloyd said yesterday that while there was no consistent pattern in the deaths being reported in Southern, patients being hospitalised were sicker that they had been before.

This was because these patients were older.

‘‘Our [case] numbers in the over 65 group are still increasing,’’ he said.

The majority of deaths in people with Covid-19 reported in Southern to date were in people with ‘‘significant co-morbidities’’ and were not unexpected, Lloyd said.

A Ministry of Health spokesperson said recorded deaths included all instances where someone had died within 28 days of being reported as having a positive test result for Covid-19.

‘‘In many instances, further investigation will provide more information about the contribution of Covid-19 to their death.’’

This contribution could range from death not related – for instance someone with Covid-19 who died in a car accident – to Covid-19 being a contributing cause – for example when someone died with an existing health condition combined with Covid-19; and to Covid-19 being recorded as the cause of death, the spokesperson said.

Nationally, 7347 new community cases were reported yesterday with 363 people in hospital and 18 people in ICU.

The Ministry of Health reported 24 death on Friday in Northland, Auckland; Waikato; Bay of Plenty; the Lakes DHB area; Taranaki; MidCentral; the Greater Wellington region; Canterbury and Southern.

Of the 5657 active cases in Southland and Otago on Friday 1079 were in Invercargill, 175 were in the Gore District, 433 were in the Southland District, 385 were in Central Otago, 291 were in Clutha, 2241 were in Dunedin, 757 were in Queenstown Lakes and 283 were in Waitaki.

Of the 31 patients in hospital, 20 were in Dunedin Hospital – where one patient was in ICU – nine were in Southland Hospital, one was in Dunstan and one was in Maniototo.