Pfizer looks to vaccinate kids under 5, anti-vax protests in Canada spark outrage, and more COVID news

Let’s get caught up with today’s COVID-19 news for Feb. 1, 2022.

Pfizer asks FDA to allow COVID-19 vaccine for kids under 5

Pfizer on Tuesday asked the U.S. to authorize extra-low doses of its COVID-19 vaccine for children under 5, potentially opening the way for the very youngest Americans to start receiving shots as early as March.

In an extraordinary move, the Food and Drug Administration had urged Pfizer and its partner BioNTech to apply earlier than the companies had planned.

Anti-vaccine protest in Canada spurs outrage

In a scene at odds with Canadians’ reputation for niceness and rule-following, thousands of protesters railing against vaccine mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions descended on the capital over the weekend, deliberately blocking traffic around Parliament Hill.

Some urinated and parked on the National War Memorial. One danced on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A number carried signs and flags with swastikas.

In the aftermath of Canada’s biggest pandemic protest to date, the demonstrators have found little sympathy in a country where more than 80% are vaccinated.

Woman pleads guilty in $1.2M pandemic unemployment scheme

A Massachusetts woman who along with an accomplice submitted 100 fraudulent claims for COVID-19-related unemployment assistance that resulted in more than $1.2 million in payouts has pleaded guilty, federal prosecutors said.

Audri Ford-Victory, 61, faces up to 20 years behind bars when she is sentenced on June 1, the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston said in a statement Tuesday, but under terms of a plea agreement she is expected to get prison time at the low end of sentencing guidelines.

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