Your Evening Briefing: A Big Crypto Crash May Be Coming Next Year

Pfizer and BioNTech said initial lab studies show a third dose of their Covid-19 vaccine may be needed to neutralize the omicron variant, results that may accelerate booster drives and lead to strain-specific shots. Company researchers observed a 25-fold reduction in neutralizing antibodies that fight the variant (compared with the original strain of the virus) in people who got just two shots. However, boosting with an additional dose restored protection to a level similar to the initial two-shot regimen, the companies said. In the epicenter of South Africa’s omicron wave, there was news that many cases are yielding only mild infections. But there’s a wrinkle, too: a different version of omicron has appeared. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

Bloomberg is tracking the coronavirus pandemic and the progress of global vaccination efforts.