I wouldn't call it "simpler", exactly. Yes, it's just getting the immune system to react to a single protein (albeit by injecting genetic material rather than t

I wouldn't call it "simpler", exactly. Yes, it's just getting the immune system to react to a single protein (albeit by injecting genetic material rather than the protein itself) rather than sending in a whole modified virus, but it's based on a fancy new vaccine technology that hadn't been successfully developed and deployed yet, I believe. Anyway, this[0] is a great rundown of the kinds of vaccines out there and in development. Both this one (Pfizer/BioNTech) and the other one that released data recently (Moderna) are mRNA vaccines. [0] https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/15/coronavirus-vaccine-prospects https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/15/co...