The Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday reported 18,191 new coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) infections and 22,014 recoveries.

The latest Covid-19 bulletin indicated 226,521 active cases while total recoveries rose to 3,213,190, or 92 percent of 3,493,447 infections since the pandemic started in March 2020.

Out of the active cases, 214,857 are mild, 2,971 are moderate, 6,875 are asymptomatic, 1,509 are severe, and 309 are critical.

“Of the 18,191 reported cases today, 17,625 (97 percent) occurred within the recent 14 days — Jan. 14 to Jan. 27, 2022,” the DOH reported.

The regions with the most cases in the recent two weeks were Region 4-A (Calabarzon), 2,101 or 12 percent; the National Capital Region (NCR) with 2,073 or 12 percent of new infections; and Davao Region, 2,011 or 11 percent.

The death toll has reached 53,736 with 74 new deaths, representing 1.54 percent of overall cases.

“Of the 74 deaths, 69 occurred in January 2022 (93 percent), one in October 2021 (1 percent), one in July 2021 (1 percent), one in May 2021 (1 percent), one in July 2020 (1 percent), and one in April 2020 (1 percent) due to the late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya,” the DOH said.

COVIDKaya is a digital application used by healthcare workers to collect and share data about Covid-19 cases.

DOH data dated Jan. 25 show about 35.2 percent of 61,013 who were tested turned out positive for Covid-19.

“Some 37 duplicates were removed from the total case count as 17 of these are recoveries and two are deaths,” the DOH said.

Meanwhile, 26 cases previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after validation.

All laboratories were operational on January 25 but two were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

The DOH said the two laboratories contribute, on average, 0.3 percent of samples tested, and 0.3 percent among positive individuals based on data in the past 14 days.

To date, 49 percent of 3,800 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 50 percent of 20,500 isolation beds, 51 percent of 15,700 ward beds, and 25 percent of 3,100 ventilators are used by patients with Covid-19 nationwide.

Meanwhile, 41 percent of 1,300 ICU beds, 39 percent of 4,600 isolation beds, 47 percent of 4,500 ward beds, and 26 percent of 1,100 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the NCR. (PNA)