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New infections, recoveries hover above 30K; cases now at 287,856

By Ma. Teresa Montemayor

January 16, 2022, 5:36 pm

MANILA – The Department of Health (DOH) logged 37,154 daily coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) infections and 30,037 new recoveries on Sunday.

Active cases rose to 287,856 while total recoveries jumped to 2,864,633, or 89.4 percent of the 3,205,396 infections recorded since the pandemic started in March 2020.

Among the active cases, 273,924 are mild, 2,940 are moderate, 9,212 are asymptomatic, 1,475 are severe, and 305 are critical.

“Of the 37,154 reported cases today, 36,303 (98 percent) occurred within the recent 14 days -- Jan. 3, 2021 to Jan. 16, 2022,” the DOH said.

The regions with the most cases in the past two weeks were the National Capital Region (NCR) with 15,591 or 43 percent of new infections; Calabarzon, 8,384 or 23 percent; and Central Luzon, 3,232 or 9 percent.

Fifty new fatalities hiked the death toll to 52,907, or 1.65 percent of overall cases.

“Of the 50 deaths, 30 occurred in January 2022 (60 percent), 1 in November 2021 (2 percent), 1 in October 2021 (2 percent), 12 in September 2021 (24 percent), 3 in August 2021 (6 percent), 2 in July 2021 (4 percent), and 1 in June 2021 (2 percent) due to the late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya,” the DOH stated.

According to the January 14 data, 47.4 percent of the 81,381 who were tested for Covid-19 turned out positive.

“(A total of) 137 duplicates were removed from the total case count as 85 of these are recoveries and one is a death,” the department said.

Meanwhile, 27 cases previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after validation.

All laboratories were operational on January 14 but 12 were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

The DOH said the 12 laboratories contribute, on average, 2.7 percent of samples tested, and 3.4 percent among positive individuals based on data in the past 14 days.

To date, 49 percent of 3,400 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 48 percent of 20,300 isolation beds, 51 percent of 14,000 ward beds, and 21 percent of 3,000 ventilators are used by patients with Covid-19 nationwide.

Meanwhile, 57 percent of 1,100 ICU beds, 50 percent of 4,900 isolation beds, 66 percent of 4,500 ward beds, and 28 percent of 1,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the NCR. (PNA)

 

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