The circuit break lockdown has been extended for at least another week.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle said the lockdown – which had been due to end on March 23 – will now continue until at least the first minute of Wednesday March 31.

’I know this is not what you will want to hear. But we judged that it is the right thing to do to protect our island’s critical services,’ he told this afternoon’s coronavirus briefing.

The news came as it emerged that people have been going into the workplace while showing symptoms.

Contact tracing had to entirely close a business as someone had been going into work despite having Covid symptoms.

Mr Quayle told the briefing: ‘This has to stop.

‘If you go into a workplace with Covid, you could be putting lives at risk – perhaps even your own.

‘And you could be putting your organisation at risk.’

Nearly two weeks into lockdown three, the number of new cases appears to have peaked – but sporadic unexplained cases continue to pop up in the community.

In total 29 new cases of Covid-19 have been detected in the last 24 hours.

Public health director Dr Henrietta Ewart said this was good news and the infection curve was either at its plateau or turning into the downward stretch.

If everyone is following the guidance we should be getting to point where we are getting no unexplained cases, she said.

But she added: ‘We are still seeing rather more community cases than we would expect so that does make us concerned that people are not following the guidance quite as much to the letter as they could and really need to be.’

The current number of active cases of Covid-19 in the island is 847, with 14 people in hospital.

Of the active cases, 594 are symptomatic and 253 asymptomatic.