The island’s first Covid-19 hospital admission, who was released from the Intensive Care Unit this week, is ’doing well and improving each day’, her family has said.

Sharon Burgess of Douglas received a round of applause by Noble’s Hospital staff on Monday at 3.30pm as she was wheeled from ICU into Ward 12 where she is currently resting after winning an arduous battle against the virus.

Miss Burgess, aged 50, was the first patient in the Isle of Man to be admitted to hospital with the virus on March 25.

She was also the first patient to be transferred to ICU two days later where she was sedated and put on a ventilator while fighting off the virus and bacterial pneumonia.

This all felt like ’an eternity’ to her daughters Cheree, Keely, Jamylea Ferns, partner Walter, son-in-law Neil Ferns, and four grandsons Nathan, Kane, Alan and Elliot, who have missed her ’like mad’.

The family released a video taken by a member of the care team of her big moment coming out of ICU.

Mrs Ferns told the Manx Independent: ’We’re all missing her so much and can’t wait for her to be home.

’She’s so lively and funny - and loud! Life is too calm and far too quiet without her physically here with us.

’We can’t actually believe how far she’s come in the last week or so, it’s like she’s fighting to get back to us now that we’ve been able to chat and FaceTime her.

’The nurses are doing their best to support her mentally too, as she’s finding all of this quite confusing and overwhelming, and struggling with the time that she’s lost.’

The family said they cannot thank the teams who helped her in Noble’s Hospital enough.

’It was quite difficult for us when we found out that she was leaving ICU.

’We wanted the best of both worlds, for her to be cared for in intensive care, but not need intensive care, which we know is impossible,’ Mrs Ferns said.

’The doctors and nurses reassured us that she wouldn’t be moved if they weren’t fully confident that she was ready, and Mum is now settled on the ward.

’They all played a huge part in reassuring Mum too and still visit her on the other ward.’

She added: ’Mum described leaving the ICU as being parted from her family, they had a huge impact on her. We keep saying this but we honestly can’t thank everyone enough.’