The Department of Health (DOH) logged 31,173 new coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) infections and 26,298 new recoveries Thursday.

Active cases increased to 275,364 while total recoveries jumped to 2,995,961, or 90.1 percent of the 3,324,478 infections recorded since the pandemic started in March 2020.

Thursday’s fresh cases tally is higher than Wednesday’s 22,958.

Among the active cases, 262,168 are mild, 2,979 are moderate, 8,424 are asymptomatic, 1,488 are severe, and 305 are critical.

“Of the 31,173 reported cases today, 29,708 (95 percent) occurred within the recent 14 days — Jan. 7, 2021 to Jan. 20, 2022,” the DOH said.

The regions with the most cases in the past two weeks were the National Capital Region (NCR) with 8,883 or 30 percent of new infections; Region 4-A (Calabarzon), 6,471 or 22 percent; and Central Luzon, 2,783 or 9 percent.

The death toll is now at 53,153 with the addition of 110 new fatalities, representing 1.60 percent of overall cases.

Of the 110 deaths, 67 occurred in January 2022 (61 percent), 3 in December 2021 (3 percent), 8 in November 2021 (7 percent), 13 in October 2021 (12 percent), 8 in September 2021 (7 percent), 5 in August 2021 (5 percent), 4 in July 2021 (4 percent), 1 in June 2021 (1 percent), and 1 in April 2021 (1 percent) due to the late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya, the DOH said.

Data dated January 18 show that about 43.3 percent of the 73,989 who were tested have turned out positive for Covid-19.

“About 132 duplicates were removed from the total case count as 87 of these are recoveries and one is a death,” the department said.

Meanwhile, 188 cases were found to have tested negative and have been removed from the total case count, and of these, 44 are recoveries.

Moreover, 59 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

All laboratories were operational on January 18 but five were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

The DOH said the 12 laboratories contribute, on average, 1.1 percent of samples tested, and 1.2 percent among positive individuals based on data in the past 14 days.

To date, 50 percent of 3,800 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 51 percent of 20,600 isolation beds, 54 percent of 14,500 ward beds, and 24 percent of 3,100 ventilators are used by patients with Covid-19 nationwide.

Meanwhile, 51 percent of 1,200 ICU beds, 47 percent of 4,900 isolation beds, 58 percent of 4,500 ward beds, and 29 percent of 1,100 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the NCR. (PNA)