The overall healthcare utilization rate or HCUR in the country remains "manageable" amid the emergence of Covid-19 Omicron subvariant XBB and XBC, the Department of Health said Friday.

Dr. John Wong, a member of the DoH-Technical Advisory Group, assured the public that they are continuously monitoring the extent and the impact of Covid-19 Omicron variants and its sub-lineages in the country.

While the HCUR is still controllable, Wong said the observance of proper triage procedures must be ensured.

"We need to ensure our triage system to make sure that only people that need to be hospitalized are using the hospital facilities so that we can reserve space and prevent the crowding out of people who are non-Covid conditions," he said.

There's also a need to increase the availability and accessibility of step-down facilities for Covid-19 cases, he added.

"Everything we've learned from protecting ourselves from Covid-19 in the past remained effective regardless of the variants," Wong said.

These layers of protection include testing, staying home when sick, improving access to oral antivirals for high-risk individuals, and acquiring Covid-19 vaccines.

"All of these still work, so we should continue," Wong said.

The Philippines has 15,314 active Covid-19 cases as of 17 October, with about 26.8 percent of Covid beds being utilized, and 25 percent of intensive care unit beds being occupied.

The DoH reported that 9.6 percent of Covid-19 admissions were categorized as severe and in critical conditions.

Meanwhile, DoH-TAG member Dr. Member, Dr. Edsel Salvaña, said as long as there are lesser hospital occupants due to Covid-19, there's no reason to revert to stricter lockdowns.

"At this time, we're looking at the case number and it's actually plateauing from the reported [cases] last week. I think that's still manageable," she said.

On the other hand, DoH epidemiology bureau director Dr. Alethea de Guzman said the country is facing a "localized community transmission" of the Covid-19 Omicron sub-lineage XBB and the XBC variant in some regions.

The DoH has detected the local transmission of XBB — a recombinant of two Omicron sub-variants — in Western Visayas, while the XBC Covid-19 variant has been observed in the Davao region and Soccsksargen.

The country's first cases of this Covid-19 variant and sub-lineage were detected on 18 October.

"Definitely there is local transmission because these are all local cases. That means we could be linked to either travel outside of the Philippines or they have exposure from someone who has recently traveled outside of the Philippines," De Guzman said, partly in Filipino.

De Guzman said it is still uncertain whether the situation could be a wide-scale community transmission or nationwide.