It was supposed to be the year of deliverance: the year science triumphed over Covid-19; the year vaccines - created and rolled out in record time - freed us from lockdown and allowed us to reconnect with one another. In the end, 2021 proved much more complicated, as hope intertwined with despair. Those moments of tentative joy - the first reunion with our loved ones, the first sight of the sea, the first live gig - were all the more precious for their precariousness, our backwards steps all the more disheartening for the progress made.