MANILA - The Philippines confirmed 16,953 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the country’s total to 3,545,680.

The positivity rate was also at 31.4 percent, the lowest since Jan. 2 this year.

The Department of Health meanwhile also reported 27,638 new recoveries, pushing the total number of Filipinos who recovered from the disease to 3,288,925.

This means that the country has a total of 202,864 active cases as of 7:30 p.m. Sunday.

Twenty new deaths from COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the country’s death toll from the disease to 53,891.

• Philippines: COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker

The National Capital Region and several other areas are set to ease quarantine restrictions starting in February as the daily rise in cases go down.

A research group from the University of the Philippines projected the number of daily new COVID-19 infections in the Philippines may return to pre-surge levels by late February or March.

Worldwide, the novel coronavirus has caused more than 372 million infections and over 5.66 million deaths since it was first reported in Wuhan, China in late 2019 according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center citing official reports.

The United States remains the most badly affected country with over 74.2 million infections and over 883,000 deaths.

Taking into account excess mortality linked to COVID-19, the World Health Organization has estimated that the overall death toll could be two to three times higher.

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

The first COVID-19 death outside of China, was also recorded in the Philippines last year.

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