The island’s rules on social distancing will not be relaxed before April 23 at the earliest - and the border will remain closed for at least another month.

Lieutenant Governor Sir Richard Gozney yesterday (Wednesday) extended the state of emergency to midnight on May 15 - on the same day that two more Covid-related deaths were announced, taking the total to four so far.

And interim chief executive at the Department of Health and Social Care, Kathryn Magson, told a press briefing: ’We believe we could potentially get 2,700 symptomatic cases on the Isle of Man. If they all present over a couple of weeks, we know we will be overwhelmed. If they present over a couple of months we may cope.’

She said it was too early to know where we are on the infection curve.

’However, as a department we are optimistic,’ she said.

Health Minister David Ashford told Tynwald that advice on staying at home and venturing out only if absolutely necessary will remain in place until at least April 23.

And he said to continue to prevent new cases coming into the island, measures to protect our borders must remain in place.

’Our border will remain closed for at least another month,’ he said.

He said: ’I do not want to dampen anyone’s spirits but at the same time I would not wish to weaken that resolve.

’We are at a critical stage in our fight against this virus and we must hold our nerve now.

’Although we are seeing some positive results the clinical advice is that the measures on social distancing must stay in place.

’There may be some scope to make changes in the medium term.

’And we are thinking about how we can create a phased return for businesses that could come back with strict social distancing in mind. But we are not there yet so we cannot relax one bit.’

He told Tynwald that the evidence so far at this early stage was that the situation appeared to be at a controllable level and is manageable within our health service resources.

At a press briefing Mr Ashford said: ’We need another week to get the data.

’But people should not be reading things into that.

’It is very important we don’t speculate and think "that means it’s another week and then it is all over". That’s not the case at all, we have to do things in a measured way.

’The additional week is to allow us to collate that data together, find out where we are on our curve and that will then make the decision on the clinical recommendations to CoMin and myself about the way forward.

’So we shouldn’t be reading too much into that at this stage.’ Ms Magson said: ’In a week’s time we will be able to predict where we will be.

’We believe we will be about two weeks from the peak of the curve at that point.

’We will also be able to see the impact of the repatriation and also the incubation period of the virus. Our strategy doesn’t change.’

That strategy aims to flatten the infection curve and build capacity in the health service.

If the virus became rampant there would be avoidable deaths, said Mr Ashford, who warned of a risk that unmanaged repatriation could lead to a ’double bounce effect’.

He said there would need to be only a very few additional cases ’to put us in serious medical jeopardy’.

Ms Magson said an on-island test results facility will be up and running by Monday and will be able to process 220 tests a day.

Mr Ashford said that would make an ’enormous difference’.

Lieutenant Governor Sir Richard Gozney yesterday (Wednesday) extended the state of emergency to midnight on May 15 - on the same day that two more Covid-related deaths were announced, taking the total to four so far.