These are the leading stories in local newspapers this Tuesday.

Times of Malta reports that Malta will be testing to see whether a new, more contagious strain of COVID-19 that has run riot in the UK has reached Malta.

The newspaper also gives prominence to Prime Minister Robert Abela’s unwillingness to make a decision about his junior minister Rosianne Cutajar, who is embroiled in a property deal controversy exposed this weekend. Abela has said he will wait for parliament’s standards commissioner to assess the matter before making a decision.

The Malta Independent also gives front-page prominence to Abela’s decision to hold off judgement of Cutajar, with the newspaper also noting that the first batches of a Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine will arrive in Malta on Saturday.

L-Orizzont focuses on the Saturday arrival of 10,000 vaccine doses to Malta, writing that a nurse is to be Malta’s first vaccine patient.

In-Nazzjon leads with a Nationalist Party statement which called prime minister Abela “weak” for his refusal to discipline Rosianne Cutajar over her property dealings.

The newspaper also writes that the government changed its position on flights to and from the UK after the PN issued a statement criticising its initial decision to allow flights to continue and restrict new measures to mandatory quarantine.