The air bridge to Guernsey has been suspended following an outbreak of Covid in the Bailiwick.Manx residents travelling back from the Channel Island will now have to quarantine for 14 days.Deputy Peter Ferbrache, Guernsey’s new Chief Minister and chairman of the Civil Contingencies Authority, confirmed the air bridge's suspension at a press conference at 1pm.

He said he had just spoken to the Isle of Man’s Chief Minister Howard Quayle.

’They are suspending the air bridge at the moment,’ he said.

’Our people currently in the Isle of Man do not need to panic.

’They can come back under the same conditions as they would have had the air bridge continued. Nothing will change in that regard.’Seven definite cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in Guernsey and one further case presumed.Mr Quayle told a press conference here that the Isle of Man remains Covid-free with no cases of the virus identified.Dr Nicola Brink, Guernsey's director of public health, said there is 'certainly transmission within our community'. 'But what we absolutely don't have is widespread community seeding of the virus.'She said of the seven definite cases, five are linked to a specific venue, one is a family member and one is a work colleague.The index case was detected through pre-travel surveillance, she said, and the others were all detected through the contact tracing process.All were detected before they had symptoms although some have since developed symptoms.Deputy Ferbrache said: ’There is no reason to panic. There has been one cluster which is well under control. So everything going forward will be as it is now. We are dealing with this situation.’Mr Quayle said given the first case identified in Guernsey had not left the island for 14 days, the outbreak must have resulted from someone getting a false negative result from a seven-day test or from someone not following self-isolation rules.He said he hoped the air bridge could be restored as soon as possible.The island's director public health Dr Henrietta Ewart said it looked like the cluster in Guernsey was contained which she said was 'very reassuring'.She said: 'So far, this does look like a contained cluster. There are no sporadic cases being identified in the community that are not related to this cluster.'The issue is that it's too early days to be absolutely categorical that the cluster is contained.'Mr Quayle said he regretted that all residents returning from Guernsey would have to quarantine for 14 days and this was the 'last thing we wanted to do' but was the safest option.