MANILA (UPDATED) — The Department of Health (DOH) on Wednesday reported 987 additional COVID-19 cases, the lowest recorded daily tally since July 14 when the Philippines logged 603 cases, data showed.

This takes the country’s total confirmed cases to 388,137, although it does not include data from 12 accredited testing laboratories that failed to submit results on time.

“The relative low report in the new cases is part of the effects of the Typhoon 'Rolly'," the DOH said in its bulletin for the day.

"We further caution that this decrease may still be observed over the next few days, and may be followed by a relative “increase” in newly reported cases in the coming days or week,” it added.

Davao City led areas in the country that recorded the highest daily additional cases with 136, followed by the province of Iloilo with 67, Quezon City with 47, Taguig City with 43, and Iloilo City with 41.

Cases of recoveries jumped by 140 over the previous day. The total number of recovered patients stood at 349,091, or 89.9 percent of the total recorded cases.

The country also recorded 49 new fatalities from the respiratory illness, taking the death toll to 7,367.

As of Wednesday, the Philippines has 31,679 active infections, accounting for 8.2 percent of the cumulative total cases. The DOH said 92.7 percent of patients currently ill are asymptomatic or exhibiting mild symptoms.

The DOH said that of the 16,163 people who were tested as of Tuesday noon, 1,145, or 7.1%, tested positive for the disease.

A total of 11 duplicates were removed from the total tally, according to the health department. Of these, 10 were tagged as recovered cases.

Meanwhile, 13 cases initially tagged as recoveries were found to be deaths after validation.

OCTA Research says daily COVID-19 cases in PH declining

The OCTA Research Group, in a report, has said the COVID-19 positivity rate in Metro Manila is declining steadily as the country's daily coronavirus cases also continue to decrease.

• PH daily infections, COVID-19 positivity rate in NCR steadily declining: OCTA group

It said in a report that the ratio of people testing positive for COVID-19 in Metro Manila is trending in the right direction at 6 percent, and is close to the World Health Organization's recommended target of 5 percent to effectively curb the virus spread.

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The average number of new cases per day for the whole Philippines went down to around 1,800, while the new average in Metro Manila is at 490, a significant improvement from August when it was at around 2,500 nationally, the OCTA group said.

The health department had also said it is hopeful that the entire country could shift to more lenient quarantine protocols by the first quarter of 2021, should local government units be able to sufficiently comply with standards on prevention, contact-tracing and treatment.

According to the Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus dashboard, almost 47.5 million people have been infected by the COVID-19 virus globally since the start of the pandemic. Of those, more than 1.2 million have died, and more than 31.6 million have recovered.