Government is not proposing to introduce any legal restrictions or requirements in the wake of the new community cases, the Chief Minister has said.

But Howard Quayle said he would encourage people to work from home where possible.

Two new cases were detected in the last 24 hours, on top of the five already identified.

Both new cases are from a known source.

There is one individual in the intensive care unit at the hospital with Covid but this was a patient who had returned from the UK and already had the virus.

Public health director Dr Henrietta Ewart said it was obviously disappointing that we do still have a level of community transmission.

She said this was likely to be related to the cluster from February and March and was probably caused by people who were asymptomatic or who hadn’t come forward with symptoms.

Health Minister David Ashford insisted the two cases of unknown source which were detected on Tuesday should not be blamed as they were ’victims who had done nothing wrong’.

Mr Quayle said: ’I know that the cases we have seen arise over the last 48 hours have caused concern for many of you. I understand that.

’We all knew that we would in due course see cases again in or community. I know we had all hoped for a bit more time before this happened.’

Mr Quayle said there was broad support in Tynwald for a move from an approach of elimination to one of mitigation.

’We are not proposing to introduce any legal restrictions or requirements,’ he said.

’Government has stepped out of your lives and we want to do everything possible to stay out. We will continue testing and we are looking at how we can use testing differently in this new phase.

’Our contact tracing team will remain at a high level of readiness to intervene when we see flare ups that cause us concern.’

He said individuals and businesses are being asked to make more choices for themselves.

The Chief Minister said government would not be mandating working from home as it did during the last lockdown.

But he said: ’I know a number of businesses - especially office based businesses - have made a decision to support staff who wish to work from home for maybe some of the week.

’This feels like a smart decision. I would encourage others who can to do the same.’