While Covid restrictions are set to ease at midnight on Friday, much of the South Island is struggling with high case numbers and are yet to hit its peak of the Omicron outbreak.
Christchurch is resembling more of a ghost town than Garden City, with the inner-city streets void of shoppers.
"For a lot of businesses that I've talked to this is actually worse than the Level 4 lockdown," Christchurch Central City Business Association's Annabel Turley told 1News.
"The future is pretty grim."
Schools are also running lean, with 84 per cent of Canterbury classrooms affected by the virus, forcing staff shortages and a lack of relievers.
Thirteen-year-old Inara Schaap is one of many isolating at home with Covid.
"I was feeling a bit sick but it just felt like a cold and I was going to take the day off anyway," Inara told 1News.
"So I took a test and found out I was positive too."
Even Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel has caught the virus, her office saying she was isolating at home and unable to attend meetings.
Covid-19 modeller Michael Plank said the South Island was lagging behind Auckland and other parts of the country, with cases in the south continuing to rise.
However, the end may be in sight, with case numbers in the south predicted to peak next week.
Meanwhile, epidemiologist Michael Baker said if Omicron remained the most dominant strain of Covid, the pandemic could become an endemic.
READ MORE: Kiwis question whether Covid-19 is becoming 'endemic'
An endemic disease is one which is always in the community, but is considered to be more stable, predictable and manageable.
"The key features [of endemics] are that the threat is constantly present," Baker said.
It does not mean the illness is less severe, however.
Baker suggests Covid-19 now presents more like the flu, but there are key differences.
"One is it's so much more infectious than influenza that causes the flu - it doesn't need the boost from winter," he said.
"Covid-19 has a higher fatality risk, though with Omicron this has now dropped to a similar level to influenza for vaccinated people."
He says Covid-19 seems to produce long-term effects more often than influenza does, and that immunity to it declines more rapidly.
"The big unknown factor is virus evolution," he said.
That could still push Omicron out as the most dominant strain and result in further pandemic waves.
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