But note that we have often tried to eliminate mosquitoes using chemicals, which have horrendous and damaging off-target effects, so removing one species without insecticide is an improvement on that. In addition, few animals rely on malaria mosquitoes for food: a study looking at the effect of getting rid of mosquitoes found that removal is unlikely to have a big impact on the local ecosystem.

It seems outrageous – hubristic, even – to suggest that we can cure, prevent and treat all disease by the end of the century. But Cori Bargmann, a geneticist and neuroscientist who heads up the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, takes the long view. "Going back in time a similar distance, much of modern medicine would have been unthinkable," Bargmann says, "from organ transplants and deep brain stimulation to treating cancer by manipulating the immune system."

In 80 years, we will almost certainly have made changes that make our best medicine look like crude guesswork. We may even have reduced the incidence of illness and disease to that of extreme rarity.

When the dust settles on the Covid-19 disaster, we should have learned that preventing disease from spreading – or at least limiting it as much as possible – not only spares lives and improves our physical and mental wellbeing, but also saves jobs and the economy. And we will understand that prevention of illness through vaccines has to be equitable and it has to be global. Investment now in healthcare and in preparation for future threats prevents deaths and economic destruction later. And it opens the way to a longer, happier life – it opens the way to achieving more human potential.