and 1 from san jose. august 26 – covid-19 cases in the country breached 200,000 mark, with 202,361 total confirmed cases after reporting 5,277 additional cases. august 31 – president duterte set ncr, bulacan, batangas, tacloban city, and bacolod under gcq and iligan city under mecq from september 1–30, 2020. september september 26 – cases in the country breached 300,000 mark, with 2,727 new covid-19 cases bringing the total of 301,256 infected individuals. september 28 during a televised meeting with president rodrigo duterte, health secretary francisco duque iii announced to keep the whole metro manila under general community quarantine (gcq) together with batangas, tacloban city, bacolod, iligan city, and iloilo city from october 1–31, 2020. lanao del sur including marawi city set under modified general community quarantine (mgcq) and rest of the country under modified general community quarantine (mgcq) batanes recorded its first covid-19 case when an lsi who arrived in the province on september 22 tested positive. batanes became the last province in the country to be reached by the disease. president duterte approved the recommendation of the iatf-eid placing ncr, batangas, tacloban city, bacolod, iligan city, iloilo city on gcq and lanao del sur (including marawi city) on mecq from october 1–31, 2020. october october 5 – department of education officially opened school year 2020–2021 in over 47,000 public schools in the country through blended learning. for the first time in philippine education system history, school opened in the homes of 22.44 million public school students. october 11 – philippine basketball association games resumed after 7-months break at the pba bubble, clark freeport zone, pampanga amid the pandemic. october 16 – indonesia surpassed the philippines in the number of confirmed cases and related deaths due to covid-19, highest in southeast asia. indonesia reported 365,200 cases and 12,600 deaths, meanwhile the philippines had over 359,100 infected patients and 6,600 death record. october 30 – malacañang announced that metro manila, batangas, iloilo city, bacolod, tacloban, iligan city, and lanao del sur will be placed under gcq for the month of november. meanwhile, the rest of the country under mgcq. november november 3 – after 4 days of suspension, pba games resumed, agreeing with recommendations by the iatf-eid. it was previously reported that a player and a game official tested positive with covid-19. november 4 – president duterte issued executive order no. 118, s. 2020, mandating doh and dti, to determine price ranges and to ensure accessibility and affordability of covid-19 tests and test kits. november 11 – the country breached the 400,000 mark, with 1,672 new cases making the total of 401,416 confirmed cases. november 21 – senate president vicente sotto iii revealed senator panfilo lacson and leyte congressman martin romualdez were the first high officials who had been inoculated with a covid-19 vaccine november 24 – bloomberg survey placed philippines at 43th out of 53 countries in covid-19 resilience ranking, dropped behind compare to asian neighbors. november 26 – the senate approved p4.5-t 2021 national budget which includes increased funding for covid-19 vaccines, continued contact tracing operations, ritm, and budgets of regional public hospitals including bed capacity and equipment and facilities upgrade. november 30 – president duterte announced gcq on ncr, batangas, iloilo city, tacloban city, lanao del sur, iligan, davao city, and davao del norte from december 1–31, 2020. the rest of the country will be under mgcq. december december 1 – president duterte signed executive order no. 121, s. 2020, granting authority to fda to issue emergency use authorization for covid-19 drugs and vaccines. december 7 – trade and industry secretary ramon lopez tested positive with covid-19, became the 4th cabinet member contacted with virus after being exposed to a person with the disease. he is asymptomatic and his last known interaction with the president was on november 20, 2020 (19 days ago). december 8 – may parsons, a filipina nurse serving in the united kingdom for 24 years, became the first in the world to administer a covid-19 vaccine outside of clinical trials. december 9 a nurse and two other filipinos in the uk were among the first who got inoculated against the disease using the pfizer/biontech covid vaccine. barangay ginebra san miguel won the 2020 pba philippine cup at the pba bubble, the only approved venue by the iatf-eid for professional basketball games in the country. ginebra bagged the championship trophy in 5 games against the undermanned tropang giga, 13 years after they got their last all filipino crown in 2007. december 14 president rodrigo duterte approved deped's proposal to have face-to-face classes in identified areas with lower covid-19 risk by january 2021, according to malacañan's spokesperson, sec. harry roque. bi and dot supported the proposal of creating a global covid-19 passport to allow international cross-border travel with stiffer health and safety measures. december 15 – iatf-eid placed isabela (excluding the independent city of santiago) in gcq until december 31, 2020, upon the recommendation of governor rodolfo albano iii due to sudden spike of covid-19 cases in the province. december 16 – education secretary leonor briones recommended to conduct dry run for face-to-face classes in 1,114 schools nationwide within areas of low covid-19 risk. december 17 world bank approved $900-million loan for the country's covid-19 recovery projects a businessman confirmed that unauthorized covid-19 vaccination activities are happening in few undisclosed locations in the country without any government approval. dfa secretary teodoro locsin jr. and senator panfilo lacson blasted on the failure of the health department to secure necessary documentary requirements including the confidentiality disclosure agreement (cda) that put the country's acquisition of 10-m doses of pfizer vaccine in limbo. this was confirmed by locsin after a meeting with ambassador to the us jose manuel romualdez, and us secretary of state mike pompeo. health secretary francisco duque iii and the country's vaccine czar carlito galvez jr. later denied all the allegations, saying that they hadn't dropped the ball and the negotiations for the vaccine was still ongoing. december 19 – after a conversation with us secretary mike pompeo, dfa secretary teodoro locsin jr. confirmed that the us counterpart will try to recover the country's bid for pfizer vaccine, even a fraction of 10-m agreed number of units. december 20 ncr's regional peace and order council issued resolution no. 19-2020, banning the use of all firecrackers in whole metro manila during the holiday season amid the pandemic. over 70 members of pnp-saf were deployed in the city of manila to implement health protocol amid the holiday season and with the pandemic. mayor isko moreno clarified that the city won't implement a lockdown. december 21 foreign affairs secretary teodoro locsin jr. revealed that the country is expected to receive 30 million doses of covid-19 vaccine from novavax as confirmed by serum institute of india, the world's largest vaccine producer. house bill no. 8280 was filed by ang probinsyano party-list representative ronnie ong that aims to provide vaccine passports for covid-19 and other infectious diseases. december 23 – malacañang suspended incoming flights from the uk from december 24–31, 2020, over the fear of the new and more infectious coronavirus variant, voc-202012/01. consequently, all inbound passengers who have been in the uk within 14 days prior to arrival in the country are also barred from entry; and travelers from the uk before the said dates are required to undergo quarantine. as of december 23, at least 40 countries have already issued travel restrictions to and from the uk december 26 – malacañang revealed that pfizer-biontech had applied for an emergency use authorization (eua) for its vaccine, to allow its availability in the country. meanwhile, president duterte declared that the country will terminate vfa if us fails to deliver covid-19 vaccines. president duterte also applauded country's medical experts on their efforts to battle against the disease including its newly reported strain. thus, malacañang canceled its order that allows face-to-face classes in january 2021 over the threat of the new variant. december 27 president duterte revealed that many already received the sinopharm bibp vaccine, including military men despite it has yet to get approval from fda. presidential spokesperson harry roque announced that travelers from countries with reported new sars-cov-2 variant from the uk will be required to undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine upon arrival in the country as approved by the president. the philippines logged 883 new cases, the lowest total number of daily cases in 5 months since july 14, 2020, when the country reported 634 cases. this increased the total number of cases to 469,886, with 22,099 still active cases, 9,109 deaths, 438,678 recoveries, and recovery rate at 93.36%. december 28 – president duterte announced new quarantine classifications from january 1–31, 2021 – places under gcq are metro manila, isabela, santiago city, batangas, iloilo, tacloban city, lanao del sur, iligan city, davao city, and davao del norte, while the rest of the country under mgcq. december 29 fda approved johnson & johnson's covid-19 janssen vaccine for clinical trial application. the country expanded travel ban to 20 countries namely – australia, canada, denmark, france, germany, hong kong, iceland, ireland, israel, italy, japan, lebanon, netherlands, singapore, south africa, south korea, spain, sweden, switzerland and united kingdom amid the threat of variant of concern 202012/01 december 30 philhealth announced that agency's premium rate is set increase in 2021 amid the pandemic to 3.50% of monthly basic salary from the present 3.00%. individuals earning below p10,000 will have fixed rate of p350 per month while those earning p70,000 monthly or more is fixed at p2.450 per month. based on the republic act no. 11223 or universal health care (uhc) law of 2018, the rate shall increase to increments of 0.5% annually, starting next year until will be peaked at 5% limit by 2025. at least 100 filipinos and foreigners who arrived in the country on december 29, 2020, clamored on the unsuitable condition of the quarantine facility provided to them in one of hotels in lemery, batangas as they reached the said facility on december 30, 2020. december 31 – at the end of the year, the country recorded 1,541 new cases, 296 new recoveries, and 14 deaths, bringing total cases to 474,064 (25,024 or 5.28% as active cases), survivor count to 439,796 (92.77%), and death toll at 9,244 (1.95%) respectively, lower than estimated data by octa research group.