The Department of Health (DOH) logged 28,471 new coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) infections and 34,892 new recoveries Tuesday.

Active cases decreased to 284,458 while total recoveries jumped to 2,933,507, or 89.7 percent of the 3,270,758 infections recorded since the pandemic started in March 2020.

Tuesday’s fresh cases tally is lower than Monday’s 37,070.

Among the active cases, 277,020 are mild, 2,940 are moderate, 9,187 are asymptomatic, 1,480 are severe, and 304 are critical.

“Of the 28,471 reported cases today, 27,735 (97 percent) occurred within the recent 14 days – Jan. 5, 2021 to Jan. 18, 2022,” the DOH said.

The regions with the most cases in the past two weeks were the National Capital Region (NCR) with 9,887 or 36 percent of new infections; Region 4-A (Calabarzon), 6,671 or 24 percent; and Central Luzon, 2,970 or 11 percent.

The death toll is now at 52,962 with the addition of 34 new fatalities, representing 1.62 percent of overall cases.

Of the 34 deaths, 33 occurred in January 2022 (97 percent), and 1 in July 2020 (3 percent) due to the late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya, the DOH said.

Data dated January 16 show that about 43.4 percent of the 51,738 who were tested have turned out positive for Covid-19.

“About 87 duplicates were removed from the total case count as 57 of these are recoveries and one is a death,” the department said.

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

All laboratories were operational on January 16 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, 1.7 percent of samples tested, and 2.1 percent among positive individuals based on data in the past 14 days.

To date, 49 percent of 3,700 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 49 percent of 20,400 isolation beds, 53 percent of 14,300 ward beds, and 22 percent of 3,100 ventilators are used by patients with Covid-19 nationwide.

Meanwhile, 53 percent of 1,300 ICU beds, 48 percent of 5,000 isolation beds, 63 percent of 4,500 ward beds, and 29 percent of 1,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the NCR. (PNA)