Southern leaders are pleading with locals to follow the lockdown rules and take the pandemic seriously

Almost 120 of the country's 797 confirmed and probable cases have been in Otago and Southland -- the area covered by Southern DHB.

They include some of the country's largest clusters of cases, in Queenstown and Bluff.

Queenstown mayor Jim Boult is concerned many people still aren't following the rules.

He says the district's testing capacity needs to be increased -- but people also need to be stay home and save lives.