MANILA (UPDATE) - The Philippines confirmed 1,085 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday bringing the country’s total to 449,400.

The Department of Health also reported 9,269 new recoveries as the DOH implemented its weekly “mass recovery” pushing the total number of Filipinos who recovered from the disease to 418,687.

This meant that the country has a total of 21,980 active cases as of 4 p.m. Sunday.

Three more deaths were reported from the illness, bringing COVID-19’s death toll in the Philippines to 8,733.

Quezon City reported the most new confirmed cases at 103. Rizal province had 46 new cases, while Makati had 44, the City of Manila had 43, and Pasig had 39.

From Dec. 1 to 8, the country's positivity rate, or the number of persons who turn out positive for the virus out of all the tested individuals, has hovered below 5 percent.

The positivity rate however rose to above 5 percent from Dec. 9 to 10, before declining to 4.6 percent on Dec. 11.

The World Health Organization's benchmark is a positivity rate of less than 5 percent for 14 straight days.

From Dec. 1 to 11, the Philippines was able to conduct over 34,000 tests daily.

The DOH has approved clinical trial applications of two COVID-19 vaccines, clearing the way for final evaluation by the Food and Drug Administration.

• Filipino nurse in UK inoculated with COVID vaccine says it's 'safe'

Some P2.5 billion is earmarked for the vaccination program under the DOH's budget, which is seen to be enough for 100 million Filipinos if each drug would be priced at P600, Sen. Sonny Angara said last week.

Another P70 billion in standby funds will be added from either approved loans or once the government exceeds its non-tax revenue targets.

House lawmakers extended until June 2021 a stimulus package allotting P10 billion for coronavirus vaccines. Some lawmakers however warned that the funds could be misused for election campaigns.

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

Worldwide, the novel coronavirus has infected over 72.12 million people and caused nearly 1.61 million deaths since it first emerged in Wuhan, China in late 2019 according to tracking website worldometers.info.

The United States remains the most badly affected country with over 16.54 million infections and over 305,000 deaths.

India follows the US with over 9.85 million infections. Brazil ranks third with over 6.88 million infections but is second in terms of deaths with over 181,000 COVID-19 fatalities.

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