Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Southeast Asia has long had a methamphetamine problem, both in terms of producers and consumers.

Governments are taking a harder and harder line with users, but their compulsory treatment centers seem only to be making matters worse.

And research into human diseases involves studying animals with similar biology, and scientists could do with more of these model organisms.

We visit an effort to add another to the list by trapping them in the wilds of Madagascar.

But first...

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued a stark warning to the nation last night.

But I need to speak to you this evening, because I'm afraid we're now facing an emergency in our battle with the new variant, Omicron. It's a message being passed on in lots of

countries. Omicron is spreading with worrying speed. No one should be in any doubt. There is a tidal

wave of Omicron coming.

And I'm afraid it is now clear that two doses of vaccine are simply not enough

to give the level of protection we all need.

That is one of the few things that's clear about the variant.

As Omicron makes its mark around the world,

scientists are feverishly working

to understand it, its effects, and what can be done to stop it. The first few days to a week of this

was characterized by everybody just asking a lot of questions to which they didn't have any answers.

And the wiser heads were saying, the only thing we can really do here is wait for the data to come in.

Hal Hudson writes about science for the economist.

Now, about two and a bit weeks on, a lot of the data has come in and we do start to see the shape of this thing.

When you say shape of this thing, let's start with exactly that.

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