Still, the overbearing Covid-19 pandemic kept it from front pages and ensured that a near-fatal blow to a deadly disease occurred with little fanfare."It doused the massive jubilation, and publicity, and recognition such a milestone deserves," said Dr. Tunji Funsho, the person more responsible than anyone else for the eradication of wild polio from Nigeria, and with it Africa. But the moment was "a huge sigh of relief," added Funsho, whose work as chair of Rotary International's polio-eradication program in Nigeria earned him a spot on Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020. "Having seen and held children paralyzed by wild polio virus ... that kind of sight has become history," he told CNN, the scale of the accomplishment still wavering in his voice as he speaks. "No child ever again would be paralyzed by the wild polio virus in Nigeria."Funsho's year reads like 2020 in reverse; rather than watching a disease spread indiscriminately and freeze the world in shock, he strangled the last embers of a different virus and unlocked huge amounts of human potential.But his is not the only achievement to be lost amid the dizzying expedition that was 2020. Even before Covid-19 existed, humans had...