There have been 59 new cases of Covid in the last 24 hours, all the result of community transmission - taking the total number of active cases to 163.

And the director of public health said that with 70 of the cases being aged between 0 and 19, it appears children are now driving Covid’s spread.

Chief Minister Howard Quayle told this afternoon’s Covid briefing: ’As you can see, cases continue to rise fast.

’This morning, the team told me that we were now dealing with around 700 close contacts of people who have tested positive. That is an increase of around 200 in the last 24 hours.

’The advice that the Council of Ministers were given this morning is that we are still not at the peak of cases. There is more to come and I need you to be ready for that.’

Two Covid patients are in hospital.

Breaking down figures from earlier today, public health director Dr Henrietta Ewart said of the total active cases, 24 were at the moment of unexplained source, 64 were locally acquired and can be linked to the cluster and three are travel-related.

Contact tracing was ongoing for a further 69.

Dr Ewart revealed that 70 of the active cases are children and young people aged from 0 to 19, with most of the remainder of the cases in adults up to the aged of 54. There are few cases in the over-55s and none at all in the over-80s.

’It appears children and young people are the driver of the transmission,’ she said.

’Although this outbreak started with adult infections it very quickly moved into households with children who became infected. The children were out and about at social events, extra-curricular events and then schools.’

Dr Ewart said 65 of the cases are students or schoolchildren and 11 are school staff, teachers or child carers.

Mr Quayle said care needed to be taken when comparing the numbers we are seeing now with those we saw back during the first outbreak almost a year ago. He pointed out that last time, we did not have the on-island testing capacity.

’It is true that we are finding more at the moment, but we are looking harder and testing more,’ he said.

Education Minister Dr Alex Allinson said Ministers had no alternative to close schools today and apologised for the disruption this had caused.

He said: ’My concern last night was the risk that schools might be feeding the spread of the virus into our community.’

Mr Quayle said one of the other big concerns was around office workers.

’This was the other environment where we saw considerable spread. This has to stop,’ he said.

’I once again have to ask all employers to ensure that only people who are absolutely essential go into the office.’

Health Minister David Ashford said given the number of health service staff having to self-isolate, his department would now focus on urgent and emergency care.

Ministers defended the decision to notify the public about today’s closure of schools to all children after 11pm last night.

They said it only emerged late into the evening about how widespread the issue was in schools.