MONTREAL -- For the second day in a row, Quebec recorded the lowest daily increase of COVID-19 cases in months, adding 588 new infections on Tuesday.

Recoveries also outnumbered new cases, with 792 people reportedly virus-free on Tuesday, leaving 7,378 active cases of COVID-19 in Quebec.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, 288,941 people have caught the virus, and 271,156 have recovered.

Tuesday's increase is Quebec's lowest daily case count since Sept. 24, which saw 582 new infections.

The province also reported eight new deaths, for a total of 10,407 since March 2020.

Of those deaths, one happened in the last 24 hours, six between Feb. 23 and Feb. 28, and another one happened before that period.

As recorded cases drop, however, hospitalizations are on the rise, with 16 more people in care, for a total of 628. Of those, 121 people are in the intensive care unit, a decrease of one over the day before.

On the province’s first day of mass vaccinations, 16,458 doses were administered, for a total of 455,328.

Health workers conducted 18,789 coronavirus tests on Sunday. The province releases it's testing data 48 hours after the reported day.

REGIONAL BREAKDOWN

As usual, the most affected region was Montreal, which reported 256 new cases, down from 303 the day before. Since the biggining of the pandemic,106,748 people have tested positive for the virus in the city.

Next was Laval (78 new, 24,781 total), Monteregie (57 new, 41,885 total), the Laurentians (45 new, 16,439 total), and Lanaudiere (46 new, 20,368 total).

Of the eight deaths reported, three were in Montreal (4,510 total), another three were in Quebec City (986 total), one was in Monteregie (1,476 total), and another in Outaouais (161 total).