17,382 new COVID-19 infections bring active cases to 213,587

The Department of Health (DOH) on Saturday reported 17,382 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the nationwide tally to 3,528,796.

Based on the DOH’s latest bulletin, active cases stood at 213,587, of which, 8,736 are asymptomatic, 199,893 are mild, 3,114 are moderate, 1,526 are severe, and 318 are in critical condition.

The Health department said of the 17,382 newly reported cases, 13,298 or 77% occurred within the last 14 days, or from January 16 to 29.

The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were the National Capital Region (NCR) with 1,520 or 11%, followed by Region 4A with 1,426 or 11% and Region 11 with 1,331 or 10%.

The DOH said recoveries climbed by 35,382 to 3,261,338 while 70 new fatalities pushed the death toll to 53,871.

The country’s COVID-19 positivity rate was 33.3%, which is higher than the World Health Organization's recommended rate of less than 5%. The total number of COVID-19 tests conducted was 56,447.

According to the latest data, at least 48% of 3,900 intensive care unit (ICU) beds for COVID-19 patients nationwide were in use.

Meanwhile, 50% of the 15,900 ward beds in the country were utilized, while 43% of the 4,400 ward beds in the National Capital Region (NCR) were in use.

Based on the report, the DOH said all laboratories were operational on January 27, while three laboratories failed to submit their data to the COVID-19 Document Repository System.

The Health department said 77 duplicates were removed from the total case count. Fifty-two of them are recoveries.

Twenty-four cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

The DOH said it released the case bulletin past 5 p.m. instead of the usual 4 p.m. due to technical issues in COVIDKaya.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology was resolving issues with COVIDKaya, according to the statement. — VBL, GMA News