421 new Covid-19 cases, 248 more recoveries: DOH

MANILA – Another 421 coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases raised the country’s total tally of confirmed infections to 2,839,111, the Department of Health (DOH) reported on Tuesday.

This brought the total number of active infections to 9,750.

In its Covid-19 bulletin, the DOH said 248 new recoveries pushed the total recovery count to 2,778,148.

Of the active cases, 3,766 are mild, 489 are asymptomatic, 374 are critical, 1,778 are severe, and 3,343 are moderate.

“Of the 421 reported cases today, 410 or 97 percent occurred within the recent 14 days – December 14 to 27, 2021,” the DOH said.

It added that the top regions with most cases in the recent two weeks were the National Capital Region with 170 or 41 percent, Calabarzon with 55 or 13 percent, and Region 3 with 39 or 10 percent of the country’s new cases.

The death toll has reached 51,213 with two new deaths.

“The two deaths were from September 2021 which were only reported now due to late of death information in COVIDKaya,” the DOH said.

The COVIDKaya is a digital application used by health care workers to collect and share data about Covid-19 cases.

The DOH added that this issue is currently being coordinated with the Epidemiology and Surveillance Units to ensure information is up to date.

According to DOH data on December 26, about 2.6 percent of 18,122 who were tested turned out positive for Covid-19.

“Two duplicates were removed from the total case count. There were 100 cases that have tested negative and have been removed from the final case count and reclassified as recoveries,” the DOH said.

It added two cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation.

Two laboratories were not operational on December 26 and 16 laboratories were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

The DOH noted that the 18 laboratories contribute, on average, 2.9 percent of samples tested, and 2.4 percent of positive individuals based on data in the last 14 days.

To date, 18 percent of 3,500 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 23 percent of 19,300 isolation beds, 11 percent of 12,300 ward beds, and 10 percent of 3,000 ventilators are utilized by patients with Covid-19 nationwide.

Meanwhile, 21 percent of 1,200 ICU beds, 20 percent of 4,600 isolation beds, 17 percent of 3,700 ward beds, and 12 percent of 1,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the National Capital Region.