The island has reached another milestone with 70 days without any new cases of coronavirus.

But Chief Minister Howard Quayle said: ’There remains challenges as we seek to restore the prosperity of the island for all.’

He said with talk of a second wave of the virus in Europe and quarantine restrictions brought back for those returning from Spain, ’vigilance must be our watchword’.

Mr Quayle said work continued behind the scenes.

At Thursday’s meeting of the Council of Ministers it was agreed that government was looking at building up capacity to potentially introduce a seven-day isolation and testing regime for returning residents, as a possible alternative to the current 14-day quarantine rule.

’I must stress that any date for introducing the change will be dependent on the infection rates in the UK and other jurisdictions,’ he told what could be the last Covid-19 press briefing.

’It is currently proposed that this will be further reviewed at the end of August.’

Under the proposal, if you come back to the island, you will go into self-isolation as usual but on day seven you will go to the Grandstand to be tested.

You will be charged for the test, with the charge likely to be about £50.

If the following day the test results come back negative, you will be able to go into work and move around the island - but you won’t be able to go a restaurant, theatre or anywhere where there is a build-up of people.

This regime has been trialled in Guernsey where data suggests between 85% and 94% of all cases of Covid-19 are caught in this period by doing the test.

Mr Quayle said he expected at some stage that a person who has travelled off-island will catch the illness and bring it back here.

’But if self-isolation is fully adhered to then the test will be done and we will able to stop it from spreading any further,’ he said.