Chief Minister Howard Quayle and Health Minister David Ashford have held a ‘routine update’ Covid-19 briefing, the first since August 5.

Mr Quayle said this time gap between briefings reflected the ‘broadly stable situation both here and across the water’, and that there had been a ‘plateau’ in case numbers on island.

The Council of Ministers have decided ‘after careful consideration’ to relax travel restrictions for island residents, in what Mr Quayle termed ‘another baby step’.

Residents aged 18 and over who are not fully vaccinated will (from the last flight and ferry on Wednesday, Sept 15) no longer have to apply for a Manx Travel Permit.

And those residents who are fully vaccinated will no longer have to apply for a vaccination exemption.

Landing forms will still be required for all travellers, including a health declaration form.

From Thursday (September 16) the government is removing the requirement for testing and isolation for any resident who is not fully vaccinated, so long as they have only travelled within the Common Travel Area in the past ten days before travelling to the island.

Scanners will also be installed at border points to allow people to ‘self serve’ by scanning the QR codes on their travel documentation.

Lastly, Peel harbour will be partially reopening from Thursday, September 16.

However, there will be ‘limited windows for docking’ and booking will be required.

The government is also publishing revised plan titled ‘learning to live in world with Covid-19’ which sets out its decision making over next one to three months.

It is available from gov.im/covid19.

The Chief Minister then addressed the recent review of 1,400 death certificates that mentioned Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, and how this added ten more deaths which are now classified as covid related.

It takes the total of covid related deaths from the pandemic to 48.

The ministers were also asked what will happen with regard to the vaccination of children aged 12-15.

The UK’s JCVI (whose advice the island follows) has decided not to recommend this, but it is possible that the UK medical chiefs will go ahead and vaccinate this age group regardless.

Health Minister David Ashford said that he would find it unlikely that the UK government would go against JCVI advice, but that if they did so, the Manx government would have to seek advice from its own public health professionals and ‘weigh up that balance of risk’ with regard to vaccinating this age group.

Public health director Dr Henrietta Ewart said that the government would ‘look at what comes out from the [UK] chief medical officers in due course, and then there will be an issue of how we assess that for our context on island’.