PH confirms 891 new COVID-19 cases pushing tally to 477,807

MANILA (UPDATE) - The Philippines confirmed 891 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday bringing the country’s total to 477,807.

The Department of Health also reported 8,316 new recoveries pushing the total number of Filipinos who recovered from the disease to 448,258.

This meant that the country has a total of 20,292 active cases as of 4 p.m. Sunday.

Four more deaths were reported from the illness, bringing COVID-19’s death toll in the Philippines to 9,244.

The DOH said the lower number of confirmed cases was due to the lower number of patients seen in COVID-19 laboratories during the New Year's Day holidays.

Davao City reported the most number of new cases at 65. Rizal province was second with 55 new cases. Isabela province had 50 new cases, the City of Manila had 40, while Quezon City has 37.

The government has said it is eyeing to use 4 COVID-19 vaccines from Russia and China by the first 3 months of 2021

Private firms in partnership with the government have also ordered an additional 3.7 to 3.8 million doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine, on top of the 2.6 million doses that were secured in the first batch which are expected to arrive in May.

The COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer, Covax, Johnson & Johnson, Novavax and Moderna are set to arrive in the third quarter, Malacanang has said.

The country’s first COVID-19 case was a 38-year-old Chinese woman from Wuhan, China.

Worldwide, the novel coronavirus has infected over 84.6 million people and caused nearly 1.83 million deaths since it first emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019 according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

A new strain of the novel coronavirus, which was first reported in the United Kingdom, has been spreading globally. 

• The UK coronavirus variant: what we know

Countries across the world tightened restrictions on their populations Saturday to fight a new surge of infections.

The United States remains the most badly affected country with over 20.42 million infections and over 350,000 deaths.

India follows the US with over 10.32 million infections. Brazil ranks third with over 7.71 million infections but is second in terms of deaths with over 195,000 COVID-19 fatalities.