Southland is top of the unfortunate leaderboard for Covid-19 cases with 108 people who have the virus, ahead of Auckland's 105 cases.
The Southern District Health Board is waiting on test results for 83 staff after two nurses were confirmed to have the virus.
The area has two significant clusters, one linked to a wedding, the other to the World Hereford Conference in Queenstown.
Southern DHB chief executive Chris Fleming told Checkpoint a total of 21 staff were in isolation and the inpatient unit at Lakes District Hospital would reopen tonight.
"I'm pleased to say that of all the test results that we got back, there were only two cases. We initially extended the testing to cover 36 staff, but we have extended it out to cover absolutely all the staff, which is a total of 83. We're waiting for about 20 results to come back," Fleming said.
"We've got a total of 21 staff currently in isolation; the two positives plus the close contacts of those two nurses."
The DHB did not know how the two nurses became infected, Fleming said.
That was why the precaution was taken to test so many people within the hospital setting - "to make sure that if there was transmission from within the staff we would pick that up".
He was asked why the Southland region had the most cases of any region in New Zealand.
"Our district does have a lot of tourism, we also hosted the Hereford conference and a couple of clusters started at weddings."
Photo: Supplied / Southern DHB
Reopening the inpatient unit
Fleming said the inpatient unit would be reopened with limited capacity.
"When we closed the inpatient unit there was only one inpatient in the unit at the time. What we'll need to do when we get the final results of the other 20 staff tomorrow, we'll re-evaluate the situation here, and if we need to, bring staff in to make sure we've got sustainable rosters.
"There is normally only a very small number of patients in the inpatient unit in Lake District Hospital. A small number as in between one and six patients."
Fleming said if there was an influx of patients needing admission tonight, some would have to be transferred to Dunstan or Invercargill Hospitals.
"We are facing challenges like every other district is. The government has provided ongoing funding to address issues like the investment in the community based assessment centres to make sure we're testing, making sure that we're stamping it (Covid-19) out," Fleming said.
Ensuring care if numbers rise
The DHB had invested extra resources to make sure it had infrastructure and support if the case numbers did rise.
"We've done some minor physical work in terms of modifying the way patients flow into the hospital, particularly separating red and green areas, in both Dunedin and Southland hospitals," Fleming said.
"We have been redeveloping our ICU and we have now got plans to be able to increase our capacity for dealing with patients that need ICU treatment for Covid-19. We now have plans in place to be able to deal with 32 (people)."
He said those plans would be done in stages.
"We've cancelled about 50 percent of our elective surgical activity, some of that has been replaced by bringing forward urgent non deferrable surgery like cancers, etcetera. Bringing them forward and treating them earlier, so that we can be in the best position for if the hospital demand increases.
"Presently, the emergency department presentations across the entire district are down at about half. And today, Dunedin hospital's occupancy was only about 50 percent. So, we are prepared, we are ready."
