New record-high 39,004 COVID-19 infections bring active tally to 280,813

The Department of Health (DOH) on Saturday recorded another record-high 39,004 COVID-19 infections, bringing the country’s caseload to 3,168,379.

The previous highest daily case count reported was 37,207 on Friday, January 14.

The country's active case count is 280,813, of which 8,928 are asymptomatic, 267,185 are mild, 2,925 are moderate, 1,472 are severe, and 303 are in critical condition.

The DOH said of the 39,004 reported cases on Saturday, 38,271 or 98% occurred within the last 14 days from January 2 to 15, 2022.

Among the top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were the National Capital Region (NCR) with 18,142 or 47%, followed by Region 4-A with 9,172 or 24%, and Region 3 with 3,325 or 9%.

A total of 23,613 more patients recovered from the respiratory disease, bringing the total tally to 2,834,708.

The number of deaths climbed to 52,858 with 43 new fatalities.

Meanwhile, the country’s COVID-19 positivity rate was at 47.1%, which is slightly lower than the 47.3% positivity rate on Friday.

Both are higher than the World Health Organization's requirement target of less than a 5% positivity rate.

The total conducted COVID-19 tests were 78,774.

Based on the latest data, 48% of 3,400 intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients nationwide are in use.

At least 51% of the 13,400 ward beds in the country were utilized, while 69% of the 4,200 ward beds in the NCR were in use.

The DOH said all laboratories were operational since January 13, while eight laboratories failed to submit data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.

There were 134 duplicates removed from the total case count. Of these, 83 were recoveries.

At least 10 cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation. — DVM, GMA News