Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1322287
2 maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 23 DECEMBER 2020 NEWS COVID-19 108 new cases of COVID-19 were registered on Tuesday, the health ministry said. 46 new recoveries were reg- istered, bringing the number of active cases to 1,553. Total recoveries stand at 10,161 while total cases reg- istered stand at 11,910. Two more deaths were reg- istered on Tuesday, bringing the total number of deaths to 196. 2,788 swab tests were car- ried out in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of swabs to 491,306. Yesterday's cases are still being investigated but from yesterday's cases, 21 cases were family members of pre- viously known cases, 10 cas- es were contacts of positive work colleagues, nine cases were from direct contacts with other positive cases and five were from social gather- ings with other positive cases. COVID-19: Two more deaths, 108 new cases SCIENTISTS at the Bio Arte laboratories at the Life Sciences Park have advised that the new strain of COVID-19 identified in the UK should be monitored in Malta. UK scientists have isolated a new strain of the COVID-19 and shared the information on the global database for other sci- entists to study. "The impact of the new strain is not yet known but it is understood to be up to 70% more highly infective. This means that, despite all gov- ernment measures to slow the spread of the virus in the UK, numbers may continue to re- main as they are," Manuele Bi- azzo, Scientific Director of the Bio Arte laboratories at the Life Sciences Park, said. Over the weekend, a growing number of countries within Eu- rope barred travel from the UK in a bid to block a new strain of COVID-19 which is sweeping across Southern England. The emergence of this variant has scientists worried because it is understood to be more infec- tious. On Monday, Malta also stopped air travel to and from the UK. Only Maltese and other residents of Malta, who are cur- rently in the UK, will be allowed to return to Malta but subject- ed to a PCR swab test on arrival and forced to go into mandatory quarantine Biazzo said that it was crucial to intensify the sequencing ac- tivities not only to determine if the new variant is spreading all around Europe but also to share information with the global community and try to help all the scientists involved in this "battle". "It is too early to know the impact on the vaccines and the monoclonal anti-body treat- ments, with the vaccines due to be administered in January," Bi- azzo said. Bio Arte said it intended to continue to sequence samples of the virus to monitor its devel- opment, despite at great cost to the laboratory, and hopes that co-operation will be forthcom- ing from the authorities. "It is a variant, a strain that has several mutations in its genome and some also concern the spike protein, responsible for binding to the host cell receptor and to manage the fusion of the viral and cellular membranes. It is not excluded that a virus will have frequent mutations. Various lin- eages of the coronavirus have al- so been identified, but they have not been associated with chang- es in virulence," Biazzo said. Biazzo said increasing trans- missibility was important for public health measures. "We al- so still do not know if this variant has other biological characteris- tics that deserve to be explored further. We need to understand if the variant will have what is called 'biological success', that is if the mutations will make it more capable of surviving." Biazzo said that other variants in the past have disappeared. "There is no scientific evidence at the time of ineffectiveness of the vaccine. And we can't even say that one vaccine can work better than another. By the way, we are still at genetic characteri- sation. Next, the scientific com- munity should do a phenotypic study. We need to see how these affect the conformation of the spike protein. So, if they can af- fect it enough to happen in that part of the protein, that needs to be recognised by the vaccine-in- duced antibody." New COVID-19 strain in UK should be monitored, scientist in Malta says Manuele Biazzo, Scientific Director of the Bio Arte laboratories at the Life Sciences Park,