EVEN as cases decline and hospitalizations are on a plateau, the Department of Health (DoH) sees the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) as a "continuing risk" due to the rise of multiple subvariants.

This comes as the country detected multiple cases of the highly-infectious subvariants of the Omicron variant -- the XBB.1.5 and the CH.1.1 or the "Orthrus".

Both variants have increased transmissibility and have a high possibility of immune evasion, while CH.1.1 have also been noted as having the same characteristics as the lethal Delta variant.

In a media briefing in Pasig on Tuesday, Health officer-in-charge Maria Rosario Vergeire said that "she cannot say" if the risk of Covid-19 has decreased amid the declining number of cases in the country.

"We know that borders have opened already and we know that the virus can cross these borders. We still know that transmission is still ongoing even if we continue to manage cases, [at] hindi pa rin nawawala ang risk sa ating bansa (and that the risk in our country remains)," Vergeire added.

She said that the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has yet to convene regarding the decoupling of restrictions from the Alert Level system.

"Pag-uusapan natin (We will discuss) with other agencies on how we can move forward without compromising the safety by not having this kind of precautionary measures so we can ensure the safety of the population," she said.

The country has a single XBB.1.5 case, which Vergeire described as a local case with an "unknown exposure" but has since recovered. There have been three CH.1.1 cases, which the World Health Organization (WHO) described as a "variant under monitoring."