Swedish police on Saturday dispersed hundreds of people who had gathered in central Stockholm to protest coronavirus restrictions set by the Swedish government. Swedish authorities said the demonstration — the first major protest against the country’s coronavirus restrictions — was illegal as it was held without permission. Stockholm police said on their website they decided to cut short the gathering just after it started when the number of participants exceeded the limits for public gatherings under Sweden’s pandemic laws. Video footage on Swedish media showed a sizable number without masks gathering in Medborgarplatsen square not far from the capital’s Old Town. Local media estimated 300 to 500 people attended.

The leader of Canada’s most populous province expressed irritation Thursday with the U.S. refusal to ship vaccines north of the border, saying he’d hoped for a change of stance with a new American president, but it remains “every person for themselves.” The U.S. so far isn’t allowing locally made vaccines to be exported, so Canada — like the other U.S. neighbor, Mexico — has been forced to get vaccines from Europe and Asia. “I thought I’d see a little bit of a change with the administration but again it’s every person for themselves out there,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said. Ford called the U.S.

The virus swept through a nursery school and an adjacent elementary school in the Milan suburb of Bollate with amazing speed. In a matter of just days, 45 children and 14 staff members had tested positive. Genetic analysis confirmed what officials already suspected: The highly contagious coronavirus variant first identified in England was racing through the community, a densely packed city of nearly 40,000 with a chemical plant and a Pirelli bicycle tire factory a 15-minute drive from the heart of Milan. “This demonstrates that the virus has a sort of intelligence. … We can put up all the barriers in the world and imagine that they work, but in the end, it adapts and penetrates them,” lamented Bollate Mayor Francesco Vassallo.

When will children be able to get COVID-19 vaccines? It depends on the child’s age, but some teenagers could be rolling up their sleeves before too long. The Pfizer vaccine already is cleared for use starting at age 16. That means some high schoolers could get in line for those shots whenever they become eligible in their area, either because of a medical condition or once availability opens up. Pfizer and Moderna both have completed enrollment for studies of children ages 12 and older, and expect to release the data over the summer. If regulators clear the results, younger teens likewise could start getting vaccinated once supply allows. The Moderna vaccine is currently cleared for people 18 and older.

The coronavirus ward in Laniado Hospital in Kiryat Sanz, Netanya currently has 31 coronavirus patients, of whom 17 are in serious condition, with six ventilated. The average age of the patients ranges from 45-51. “One hundred percent of the seriously ill coronavirus patients in Laniado weren’t vaccinated or were vaccinated with only one dose [before they became ill],” said Prof. Tzvi Shimoni, the hospital’s medical director. “These are patients of varying ages, including young patients. I believe that not getting vaccinated is a real danger to life, especially in the current situation when schools, businesses, and cultural instituations are opening.” “I see the relatives after their loved ones are hospitalized.

South African variant cases in Israel have increased to almost 500, and health officials believe that it is spreading beyond control, with dozens of new cases being diagnosed every day, Haaretz reported. Although Israel has closed its borders in an effort to prevent virus variants from entering the country, the South African variant entered months ago, with many Israelis bringing it back from the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. Now dozens of cases have been identified in random testing, meaning that cases are being diagnosed in Israelis who haven’t been abroad or in contact with those who traveled abroad. Health officials are particularly worried about the South African variant as it is been proven to be more resistant to the current vaccines.

Almost half of Israel’s coronavirus cases originated in the educational system, according to a government report submitted to the Supreme Court on Thursday, Ynet reported. The report was submitted to the court following a lawsuit filed last week by a national parent leadership group demanding that 7th to 10th graders be allowed to immediately return to their classrooms. Students in 7th to 10th grade, the only Israeli students still at home, are scheduled to return to school on March 7 in green, yellow, and orange areas. “The Health Ministry is aware of the difficulty created by the fact that students in grades 7-10, unlike children in lower grades, have studied the fewest amount of days during the past year in an in-person format,” the state wrote.

Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of the Health Ministry’s Public Health division, warned about a rise in seriously ill young coronavirus patients in the Chareidi sector, Kikar H’Shabbos reported on Thursday. Dr. Alroy Preis’s warning comes on the background of a lower vaccination rate in the Chareidi sector than that of the general population. “We would very much like to see an increase in the vaccination rate in the Chareidi sector,” Alroy-Preis said. “Twenty percent of Chareidim aged 50 and older still haven’t been vaccinated, in comparison to 5-6% of those above 50 in the general population.

Regulators in the U.K. and four other countries plan to fast-track the development of modified COVID-19 vaccines to ensure that drugmakers are able to move swiftly in targeting emerging variants of the disease. Previously authorized vaccines that are modified to target new variants “will not need a brand new approval or ‘lengthy’ clinical studies,” Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said in a statement. The new guidance was issued jointly by regulators in the U.K., Australia, Canada, Singapore and Switzerland. The guidelines build on the model already used to modify the flu vaccine in response to continual changes in that virus.

A national panel of vaccine experts in Canada recommended Wednesday that provinces extend the interval between the two doses of a COVID-19 shot to four months to quickly inoculate more people amid a shortage of doses in Canada. A number of provinces said they would do just that. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also expressed optimism that vaccination timelines could be sped up. And Health Canada, the country’s regulator, said emerging evidence suggests high effectiveness for several weeks after the first dose and noted the panel’s recommendation in a tweet. But two top health officials called it an experiment. The current protocol is an interval of three to four weeks between doses for the Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca vaccines.