Several classes remain online due to quarantines as schools reopen

Jan 10 2022

Children returned back to their desk today Monday 10th January 2022, but several classrooms had to resort to online schooling methods due to many students and teachers still stuck in quarantine.

Malta Union of Teachers president Marco Bonnici revealed that on Friday, representatives of church, state and independent schools met with the Education Ministry to plan for the return to school

With delays pushing the date from last week after concerns were raised by the MUT, students first started online lessons last week following an agreement between the union and government to decease the impact of a spike in COVID cases over the holidays.

Tens of thousands of people had to quarantine after cases blew over well over 1,000 daily. Bonnici said that schools surveyed their students and teachers in the past days to figure out how many were in quarantine and determine whether specific classrooms should remain online.

‘At the moment we are mostly concerned about the recent changes in quarantine rules that did away with the need for release letters from the health authorities and placed the onus of returning to school on the individual. We will have situations in school where people return before they should’ he said.

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Meet the first-ever executive chairperson for Malta’s Cannabis Authority

Jan 10 2022

Mariella Dimech has been appointed as the first Executive Chairperson of the Authority on the Responsible Use of Cannabis.

Minister for Equality, Research and Innovation Owen Bonnici issued the appointment, which will last for a period of three years. The first Board of the Authority has also been appointed for a period of three years, featuring a host of professional educators and experts.

Dimech herself is a psychotherapist by profession and has worked with Caritas for 21 years. She was the coordinator of all ‘Tama Ġdida’ programs and services for 10 years.

Responsible for the creation of clinical programs for all services as coordinator, she also ran the San Blas Therapeutic Community for six years. The concept of residential treatment for drug victims was introduced for the first time whilst she lead the community. And this just scratches the surface of her work in this sector.

The Authority for the Responsible Use of Cannabis will have several vital functions going forward.

These include duties as regulator for non-profit associations whose associations involve cultivation and possession of cannabis for member distributions as well as organising or promoting educational campaigns on responsible use of cannabis.

Dimech will be overseeing the creation of all the necessary systems with immediate effect. She will be joined by Youth and Community Studies lecturer Janice Formosa Pace as Deputy Chair Person, psychotherapist Nadine Brincat and Sina Bugeja, who served as Chief Executive Officer – Special Projects within the Ministry for Health.

Medical doctor Marius Caruana, psychotherapist Charles Cassar, lawyer Gabriel Farrugia, clinical psychologist Paul Micallef, Sedqa Director Charles Scerri and lawyer Joe Reno Vella as Board Secretary will be part of the team as well.

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Majority of kids with traces of second-hand smoking survey reveals

Jan 10 2022

A study showed that the vast majority of children participating had traces of second-hand smoke in their bodies. This was despite nearly three-quarters of parents concerned reporting that the children were not exposed to smoking at home.

Shedding a spotlight on the hidden impact of tobacco which potentially exists in the age cohort, the study took urine samples from 174 children aged 9 to 11 from five different public schools.

Although 72.4% of parents reported that their children weren’t exposed to tobacco smoke at home, the urine samples revealed that a whopping 95.4% of the kids were exposed to nicotine. Another 98.3% were exposed to nicotine-derived nitrosamine ketone (NNK), a known lung carcinogen derived from nicotine.

Lead researcher Dr Noel Aquilina from the UOM’s Department of Chemistry revealed that since almost all children were exposed to tobacco smoke, the exposure does not occur only at home.

This means exposure occurs in transit, such as when walking or in cars, or during other social activities wherein adults smoke in the presence of children. He said that this study should show how there needs to be better monitoring of children’s exposure.

Children tend to flush carcinogens from their body slower when compared to adults. In Malta, it is prohibited to smoke in private cars carrying kids under 16, but there are no restrictions on smoking at home, outdoors or in a kid’s presence.

Aquilina also explained that many studies have looked into the impact of second-hand smoke on adults over the years. However, these often relied on parent’s questionnaire data.

This particular study was the fifth in the world that checked for the level of second-hand smoke exposure in kids by looking for smoking-derived carcinogens in their urine.

While 23% of the children were exposed to very low levels of second-hand smoke, the majority 70.7% were exposed to significant levels. Three children (1.7%) could be classified as active smokers from their biomarker levels. A total of 16.4% kids reported that someone smoked at home.

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Malta among 10 worst countries to live in according to expats

Jan 10 2022

According to a survey published by an international expat community, foreign nationals living in Malta ranked the island among the top 10 worst countries to live in.

Asking 12,420 participants, representing 174 nationalities living in 186 countries to rank countries they were living in, the Expat Insider survey for 2021 was published by global expat networking community InterNations.

Four criteria were considered for the survey – quality of life, ease of settling in, personal finance and working abroad. On a list of 59 destinations, Malta ranked 50th.

The island was outranked by Kuwait, Italy, South Africa, Russia, Egypt, Japan, Cyprus, Turkey and India as the worst countries for expats to live in respectively.

Conversely, expats picked Taiwan as the best country to live in, followed by Mexico, Costa Rica, Malaysia and Portugal in the top spots.

The survey delved into deeper details, with expats ranking Malta 20th for leisure options, 25th for health and well-being, 48th for personal happiness, 43rd for safety and security, 46th for digital life and 56th for quality of environment as well as quality of transport.

Expats also ranked the island 35th when considering the ease of settling into the country, 31st in the experience of working in the country as a national, 35th again when considering cost of living and 51st in maintaining personal finance.

Malta was also on a constant down-slide, featuring among the bottom 10 countries last year when it ranked 52nd out of 60. In 2020, Malta was also the only European country to rank among the top 10 worst places to live by expats.

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