Experts say defying negativity can help put even such a convoluted year as 2020 in its proper context.
(CNN) -
In 2020, a devastating virus officially disappeared from the continent that it had once swept, a remarkable public health achievement after decades of work.
But you may have missed it.
The eradication of wild polio from Africa in August was hailed as a "big day" by the World Health Organization and celebrated by public health officials.
Still, the pervasive covid-19 pandemic kept her off the headlines and ensured that a near-fatal blow to a fatal disease occurred with little fuss.
"It stifled the massive jubilation, publicity and recognition that a milestone like this deserves," said Dr Tunji Funsho, the person more responsible than anyone else for the eradication of wild polio from Nigeria and, with that, from Africa.
But the moment was "a great sigh of relief," added Funsho, whose work as chair of Rotary International's polio eradication program in Nigeria earned him a spot among Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
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"Seeing and holding children paralyzed by the wild polio virus ... that kind of vision has become history," he told CNN, his voice excited by the scale of the achievement.
"No child will ever be paralyzed by the wild polio virus in Nigeria again," he added.
The year of Funsho reads like 2020 backwards.
Instead of watching a disease spread indiscriminately and paralyze the world in shock, it quenched the last embers of a different virus and unlocked enormous amounts of human potential.
A child receives polio vaccine drops in Kajiado, Kenya in 2018.
But this is not the only achievement that is lost in the midst of the dizzying expedition that was 2020.
A problem that comes from before 2020
Even before COVID-19 existed, humans had an unequivocal and scientifically pointed tendency to believe that the world is poorer, more angry and unstable than it really is.
It is part of an unconscious desire to hold on to negative stereotypes and ignore the scale of progress that unfolds in front of us.
It's a habit acquired in childhood and reinforced by media coverage and our own psychological quirks, many experts believe.
Simply put, we believe the world is a bad place that is getting worse - a feeling that has certainly grown in the last 12 months.
The only problem?
We're wrong.
"I am a born optimist," Funsho said as he reflected on the challenges his years of work faced.
The challenges ranged from a Boko Haram insurgency that prevented children in northern Nigeria from being vaccinated against polio, to treacherous terrain that forced his team to travel by motorcycle, donkey and camel to deliver injections.
"When the world comes together with a common purpose, to improve the lives of all the citizens of the world, no matter where they live, we can achieve it," he said.
"He was quite optimistic and I proved him right," he added.
Good things kept happening in 2020, even as the loss and isolation spread on an epic scale.
And according to dozens of scientists and data experts, there are achievements like Funsho's that are constantly happening in a rapidly improving world.
We are just not paying attention.
Change mindset
"In a world with many problems, it's like you are forbidden to speak of good things," complained Ola Rosling.
Rosling is a co-author of the bestseller "Factfulness," which seeks to educate people about the improvements in global poverty, health and well-being that are underrated.
Rosling is one of a group of experts who force people to think differently about our world.
And in 2020, their efforts are particularly poignant.
"Even during the years without a pandemic, people are very reluctant to believe that the world is better than it used to be," he told CNN.
“We could improve the world a lot.
There are many problems, "he admitted.
"But I think the main problem is our mentality," he said.
Changing that mindset has been the mission of Rosling and her late father, Hans.
His 2018 book was hailed by Bill Gates, who paid for any U.S. college graduate to buy it for free.
And it revealed an alarming human tendency.
When the authors asked thousands of people around the world to estimate rates of extreme poverty, girls in education systems, boys vaccinated against measles, and dozens of other metrics, respondents consistently assumed that each measure was worse than it is. .
In fact, if the authors had 'placed a banana next to each of the three (options) and let some chimpanzees choose the answers, they might be expected to have answered one out of three questions correctly, outperforming most humans in the process, 'wrote Hans Rosling in 2015.
A saleswoman offers green peppers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in April.
According to the World Bank, poverty decreased more in Tanzania than in any other country between 2000 and 2015.
"There is no political or partisan division in this misconception," Ola Rosling, who now heads the Gapminder organization, told CNN.
"In a changing world, systemically, on both the left and the right, people are equally out of date about the world."
'This is probably the best of times'
It seems that we don't want to let go of those negative assumptions.
In a 2018 study cited by psychologists, including Canadian-American author Steven Pinker, as evidence of people's ignorance of improvements globally, Harvard researchers asked participants to look for different things, like blue dots, threatening faces or unethical actions.
"We found that when participants searched for a category that became less common over time, they 'expanded' that category to include more things," lead study author David Levari told CNN.
'So when blue dots became rare, people called a wider range of colors blue.
When threatening faces became weird, people called a wider range of facial expressions 'threatening'.
"These findings suggest that when people are on the alert for something negative that is becoming less common, instead of celebrating their good fortune, they may begin to find that negative something in more places than they used to," he said.
Outdated assumptions are passed down from generation to generation.
They are taught during childhood and reinforced by media coverage of negative but rare events, Rosling suggested.
"The world is in very bad shape, but this is probably the best of times," he added.
"And most people can't imagine that because of how our brains are wired."
Finding positives in a difficult 2020
Negativity may be a human tendency, but experts say defying it can help put even such a convoluted year as 2020 into its proper context.
The pandemic, for example, paralyzed efforts to resolve a number of scientific achievements.
But it also covered up a number of achievements.
And he made sure we spent much more time focusing on one new health crisis, rather than celebrating the fact that others are slowly but surely approaching an end.
One of those milestones was reached by a team of doctors, including virologist Ravindra Gupta, who cured HIV in a person for the second time in history.
This was achieved in 2019 and was made public in March.
"It was really great news," Gupta told CNN.
"The first time it happened was almost 10 years ago, and people had not been able to do it again, so people wondered if it was real or if it was a coincidence," he explained.
Adam Castillejo, known as the London Patient, in London's East End in March.
Castillejo's treatment for HIV / AIDS marked an important milestone in the battle against the disease.
"It reinforces the hope that a cure for HIV is possible," said Richard Jefferys, scientific project director for the US-based Treatment Action Group.
The pandemic of this 2020 also gave way to the creation of a vaccine with historical speed, which rewrote all the rules about the speed with which said vaccine could be produced.
MIRA: Pfizer and Moderna used advanced technology to get vaccines against covid-19 in record time, according to an expert
'I think it's unique,' said David Matthews, Professor of Virology at the University of Bristol, of the multiple vaccine candidates approaching or reaching approval in 2020. 'It's important to remember that early in the year we literally had no idea if it was possible. some kind of vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 ", he recalls.
"We are entering a new era of vaccine development," added Andrew Preston of the University of Bath.
There is even hope that the mRNA technology first used in some covid-19 vaccines could work against a wide range of other infections, including cancer.
Progress begets progress
And the crisis also led to renewed recognition of scientific work, according to Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
“For the first time I can remember, people listen directly to scientists on a regular basis.
And I think people like what they are hearing, (about) how we think about a problem, how we make evaluations, how we react to different situations, "he told CNN.
"I think it is a really important and positive development, and on which we have to build," he said.
Progress begets progress.
When wild polio was put down in Africa, Funsho told CNN that his team quickly redesigned its operation to combat COVID-19 in the region.
this protected her from the virus in a way that would have been impossible otherwise.
And the crisis may have had even more profound implications elsewhere.
"This pandemic helped us see all the real players in what we call society, all these people in uniform who were always talked about badly," Rosling said.
Tribute to Health Professionals in New York in April.
"I think it is sharpening our seriousness about what a society really is and the kind of solidarity needed to keep it going," he added.
Meanwhile, Rosling wishes to highlight the constant vital improvements that happened in the background.
"The trends that really shape and shape the lives of the future generation are things that never make the news," he said.
He cited increasing access to electricity, declining mortality during childbirth and progress in fighting diseases such as malaria and polio as sources of light that shone throughout the year.
"To realize how good the world is and how many things are improving, you first have to confront people's worldview and show them that they are actually very wrong," he summarized.
"Being aware of progress makes you realize that the problems that you heard about tonight, you listen to because we are going to try to solve them," he said.
"Problems are to be solved," said Rosling.
"And historically we have managed to solve the biggest problems," he concluded.