The now universally acknowledged failure of vaccines and masks to reduce your chances of spreading, contracting or dying from Covid (any more effectively than, say, having a Lemsip and a lie-down), and the alarming spike in excess deaths in countries where vaccination and mask-wearing were mandatory (reported so well in these pages by Rebecca Weisser but ignored by our mainstream media), have done nothing to bolster faith in the adage ‘prevention is better than cure’.