MANILA (UPDATE) — The Department of Health (DOH) on Tuesday reported 1,400 additional COVID-19 cases, or a total of 442,785 confirmed coronavirus infections in the Philippines.

This is the 9th straight day that the daily tally counted fewer than 2,000. Tuesday’s additional cases do not include data from 9 laboratories that failed to submit results on time.

Benguet had the most number of new infections, with 101, followed by Davao City, with 90; Quezon City, with 82; Rizal province, with 75; and, Laguna, with 56.

With 139 additional recovered patients and 98 new COVID-related deaths, the total recoveries climbed to 408,790, and the death toll, to 8,670.

The 98 new deaths is the highest reported in nearly a month and the 14th highest reported in a single day since the start of the pandemic.

According to the ABS-CBN Data Analytics, the 1.96% case fatality rate reported Tuesday is the highest since August 3.

Meanwhile, the active cases in the country stood at 25,325, or 5.7 percent of the total recorded infections.

Of these, 84.8% have mild symptoms, 6.6% are asymptomatic, 5.5% are in critical condition, 2.8% have severe symptoms, and 0.32% have moderate symptoms.

The DOH removed 14 duplicate cases, 8 tagged as recovered, from the official tally. There were also 43 cases initially tagged as recovered but turned out to be deaths.

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The DOH said on Monday that around 10 to 12 laboratories regularly miss their deadline for COVID-19 test results. It said it is already working with the laboratories to improve the process.

THE OCTA Research group estimates a total of 500,000 total cases in the country by the end of the year.

On Tuesday, A 90-year-old British grandmother became the first person in the world to receive Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine outside clinical trials, just days after the United Kingdom approved use of the drug.

Margaret Keenan received a dose of the vaccine at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire.

The vaccine was administered by nurse May Parsons from the Philippines, said British Ambassador to the Philippines Daniel Pruce.

• British grandma 1st in world to get Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine outside trial
• ‘Fantastic moment’: Filipino nurse injects historic COVID-19 vaccine to British grandma

Philippine officials said the country may start the rollout of its own COVID-19 vaccination program in the latter part of the first quarter next year.

Since the start of the pandemic, more than 67.6 million people have been infected by the COVID-19 virus, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard. Of those, 1.5 million have died and almost 43.6 million have recovered.

More than 22.5 million people around the world are currently infected with COVID-19, the tally shows.

- with reports from Reuters