Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

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

Ethiopia's new-ish Prime Minister was supposed to be a champion of peace. In fact, he got

last year's Nobel Peace Prize. But in Orohmea, the country's most populous state, our

correspondents seize evidence of a violent and indiscriminate crackdown.

And amid COVID-19, there are fewer glitzy holiday pictures on Instagram, but people still

talk about where they are. Our data team dug into hundreds of thousands of posts, finding

that they might be useful for tracking the progression of the disease.

But first, today Britain joins much of the rest of Europe in imposing strict rules on

socialisation meant to curb the spread of coronavirus.

That is why people will only be allowed to leave their home for the following very limited

purposes. Shopping for basic necessities.

This social distancing will directly and indirectly save lives, and it'll buy time for the development

of COVID-19 drugs and eventually vaccines. Last week, the World Health Organization

announced a global trial called Solidarity to jumpstart the search for treatments.

This large international study is designed to generate the robust data we need to show

which treatments are the most effective.

World leaders have tried to sound a note of optimism about early-stage research.

So we slash red tape to develop vaccines and therapies as fast as it can possibly be done.

But just how fast will that be?

The world is not particularly well prepared to fight COVID-19. For the simple reason that

this is a totally novel virus that we've never seen before.

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