Canterbury District Health Board staff are being urged not to become complacent as cases begin to drop.

Chief executive Peter Bramley said daily new Covid cases in the region had plateaued at around 1000 over the past few days although 1466 were reported on Tuesday.

"But this is much better than the 1,800 we had a week ago," he said.

Bramley said he suspects everyone is a "bit over it" after two years of responding to the challenges of Covid-19.

"Our teams managing our ECC and EOCs are surely looking forward to eventually returning to business as usual after 64 days of focusing on supporting the Omicron system-wide response.

He said despite all of this, he is encouraging staff not to become complacent.

"At work, at home and in our community, we are all responsible for taking the necessary precautions to reduce the spread of Covid-19, influenza and RSV."

Bramley said aged residential care facilities in Canterbury have been hard hit by staff absence.

"Last week a call went out to try and find people prepared to take some shifts over the Easter weekend. Health care assistants and registered nurses were needed, and I'm thrilled that we got a fantastic response from people offering to work."

Registered and enrolled nurses, as well as health care assistants, were placed into 155
shifts between Friday and Sunday across Canterbury and the West Coast.

Hospital visitor restrictions were also relaxed as of Tuesday.

"A hospital stay can be stressful and a bit lonely and that's compounded when friends and whānau are unable to visit."

Some highlights of the revised visitor policy include:

• One adult visitor may be accompanied by one child over the age of 12 per patient in the hospital at any given time
• Women in labour and in the birthing suite can have two support people, and women on the maternity ward are allowed one support person for the duration of their stay at Christchurch Women's Hospital.
• Parents/caregivers are able to be with their child in hospital (except Children's Haematology and Oncology Day patients where only one parent or caregiver is
  permitted at a time).

Face masks remain a requirement across all CDHB campuses and facilities.