MANILA - The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday logged 235 new Covid-19 cases, the lowest single-day infection in 18 months. In its latest case bulletin, the DOH said the figure pushed the total case tally to 2,836,868. Meanwhile, the active cases declined further to 10,526 after the DOH reported 780 new recoveries. The country now has 2,775,991 recoveries. About 4,104 of the active cases are mild, 659 are asymptomatic, 393 are critical, 1,868 are severe, and 3,502 are moderate. "Of the 235 reported cases today, 228 or 97 percent occurred within the recent 14 days - Dec. 1 to 14, 2021. The top regions with cases in the recent two weeks were NCR (National Capital Region) with 53 or 23 percent, Region 4-A (Calabarzon) with 23 or 10 percent, and Region 3 (Central Luzon) with 20 or 9 percent," the DOH said. The department also recorded 10 new deaths, which brought the country's Covid-19 fatalities to 50,351. "Of the 10 reported deaths, only nine occurred in December 2021, and one in October 2021 due to late encoding of death information to COVIDKaya," it said. The DOH said this issue is being coordinated with the epidemiology and surveillance units to ensure information is up to date. According to DOH data on December 12, only 0.9 percent of 24,120 who were tested turned out positive for Covid-19. "About five duplicates were removed from the total case count, as they are recoveries. Also, there were 165 cases that have tested negative and have been removed from the total case count as 161 of them are recoveries," it said. "Moreover, three cases that were previously tagged as recoveries were reclassified as deaths after final validation." Four laboratories were not operational on December 12 and eight laboratories were not able to submit their data to the Covid-19 Document Repository System. The DOH noted that the 12 laboratories contribute, on average, 1.5 percent of samples tested, and 2.6 percent of positive individuals based on data in the past 14 days. To date, 23 percent of 3,600 intensive care unit beds, 24 percent of 19,600 isolation beds, 12 percent of 12,400 ward beds, and 13 percent of 3,000 ventilators are utilized by patients with Covid-19 nationwide. Meanwhile, 24 percent of 1,300 intensive care unit beds, 19 percent of 4,700 isolation beds, 17 percent of 3,700 ward beds, and 16 percent of 1,000 ventilators dedicated to patients with Covid-19 are in use in the NCR. (PNA) }