The Philippines recorded its highest number of deaths due to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in a day Monday with 259 succumbing to the disease, the Department of Health said.

This brought the death toll to 4,630.

There are also 4,699 new confirmed cases, raising the total cases nationwide to 265,888 while 249 patients have recovered, taking the total recoveries to 207,504.

According to the latest data from the Health department, of the 259 deaths, only 28 occurred in September while most of these happened in August with 110 deaths and July with 97 fatalities.

Twenty-two of the total deaths reported took place in June while the rest were in May and April.

Deaths were from the National Capital Region with 154 or 59 percent, Region 7 with 55 or 21 percent, Region 4A with 28 or 11 percent, Region 8 with 4 or 2 percent, Region 5 with 3. The remaining deaths were recorded in Regions 3, 9, 10, BARMM, Region 6, CAR, and CARAGA.

Of the 4,699 new reported cases, 4,090 or 87 percent occurred within the most recent 14 days (September 1 to September 14, 2020).

NCR was the top region in number of cases in the last two weeks were NCR with 1,102 or 27 percent.

“There were 27 duplicates that were removed from the total case count. Of these, 16 recovered cases have been removed. Moreover, there were 297 cases that were previously reported as recovered but after final validation, they were deaths (253) and active (44) cases,” the department said.

It was disclosed that 15 laboratories were not able to submit their data to the COVID-19 Data Repository System (CDRS) last September 13.

Meanwhile, the Healthcare Professionals Alliance Against COVID-19 (HPAAC), an alliance of more than 160 member organizations of healthcare professionals and health workers working together to address the pandemic, reminded the public that the pandemic is not yet over and urged them to continue practicing minimum health standards.

“Sa mga barangay akala ng ating mga kababayan pawala na ang virus. Nakakalungkot yun. Wala kaming tigil sa pagsulong ng mga bagay na makakapag-ensure ng kaligtasan at pag-angat (ng) economy. Nandito pa rin (ang) virus, ‘di nagbabago ang ways ng pag-prevent nito to protect ourselves. ‘Di pa tayo ga-graduate pero kaya natin (Our fellowmen in the communities think the virus is gone. That’s saddening. We keep on doing things to ensure safety and recovery of the economy. The virus is still here and our ways to protect ourselves and prevent the virus are still the same. We are not over it yet),” Lei Camiling-Francisco of the HPAAC said.

The country recorded the previous highest number of deaths in a day last Saturday, September 12, with 186 fatalities.