The Department of Health on Sunday logged 1,712 new cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), pushing the nation’s overall tally to 3,652,203. This record is just 89 cases higher than the lowest number of daily infections since Dec. 30, 2021 at 1,623.

The latest Covid-19 bulletin indicated 60,532 active cases while total recoveries rose to 3,538,987 after 3,686 new recovered cases were recorded.

Out of the active cases, 55,102 are mild, 2,848 are moderate, 856 are asymptomatic, 1,421 are severe, and 305 are critical.

“Of the 1,712 reported cases today, 1,611 (94 percent) occurred within the recent 14 days -- Feb. 7 to 20, 2022,” the DOH reported.

The regions with the most cases in the recent two weeks were the National Capital Region (NCR) with 316 or 20 percent, Calabarzon with 221 or 14 percent, and Western Visayas with 180 or 11 percent of the new infections.

The death toll has reached 55,684 with 77 new deaths, representing 1.52 percent of overall cases.

“Of the 77 deaths, 51 occurred in February 2022 (66 percent), 20 in January 2022 (26 percent), 3 in October 2021 (4 percent), and 3 in September 2021 (4 percent) due to the late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya,” the DOH said.

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

According to the February 18 data, about 8.8 percent of 28,500 who were tested turned out positive for coronavirus.

“Some 257 duplicates were removed from the total case count as 246 of these are recoveries and one is a death,” the DOH said.

Meanwhile, 61 cases previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after validation.

All laboratories were operational on February 18 but three were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System.

The DOH said the three laboratories contributed, on average, 0.7 percent of samples tested, and 0.5 percent among positive individuals based on data in the past 14 days.

To date, 30 percent of 3,800 intensive care unit (ICU) beds, 26 percent of 20,500 isolation beds, 20 percent of 14,500 ward beds, and 15 percent of 2,100 ventilators are used by patients with Covid-19 nationwide.

In the NCR, 27 percent of 1,200 ICU beds, 23 percent of 4,500 isolation beds, 26 percent of 4,100 ward beds, and 17 percent of 1,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use. (PNA)

(Photo credits to: WHO)