In news that is sure to prompt a global sigh of relief, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer/BioNTech say a booster jab of their Covid-19 vaccine will neutralise the new Omicron strain of the virus. They say a third dose boosted antibodies by a factor of 25, making the level of protection comparable to that of two doses against other variants like Delta. Back in Australia, the medicines regulator provisionally approved Moderna for use as a booster shot with the final tick-off from the vaccines advisory group to come. New locally-acquired COVID cases in NSW were up 55% on Tuesday’s number to 403 yesterday. That includes 5 new Omicron cases, bringing the total number of active cases in the state to 34. In Victoria, an international arrival has become the first person to test positive for Omicron there – and Queensland had a similar story. On top of that, a South African man has tested positive for an ‘Omicron-like’ strain making the Sunshine State one of the first in the world to identify a case of the sub-variant.