Covid-19 case rates are on the rise again.

According to the last government update, the current number of active cases in the island is 600.

There have been 63 new cases, with 17 of those pending investigation.

At the moment, there are six people in hospital with the virus but none are in ICU.

Approximately 149 new cases were identified over the weekend.

The last time the island had a spike like this was in August of this year before the number of cases decreased again.

They began to rise in September and have continued to increase since.

Newly-elected Chief Minister Alfred Cannan has confirmed he has met with senior officers, and the director of public health, to discuss what he described as the ’three critical issues’ - Covid in schools, gas prices, and the pressures on the health service.

Julie Edge, the new Education Minister, has said there will need to be further discussion by the new Council of Ministers on mitigations in schools to stop Covid-19 spreading among children.

This comes after Ballakermeen High School issued a letter to its students asking that two year groups study at home this week due to ’respiratory illnesses’.

Year 10 pupils at the school will study at home on Monday and Tuesday with year nine pupils doing the same between Wednesday and Friday.

The school is apparently dealing with high levels of staff absence and can’t have a teacher in every classroom.

QEII High School has also made mask wearing mandatory.

Meanwhile, there are currently no visiting restrictions at any Manx Care residential homes. All homes and units are operating as normal with the usual Covid-19 protocols in place. These include temperature taking, testing through voluntary LFTs, hand hygiene, mask wearing and visiting logs for contact tracing purposes.