Here's a recent article that describes how Moderna's vaccine had already "been designed by January 13... just two days after the genetic sequence had been made

Here's a recent article that describes how Moderna's vaccine had already "been designed by January 13... just two days after the genetic sequence had been made public." https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-design.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vac... Attempts at creating vaccines for SARS-CoV-1 (previously known as just SARS) and MERS apparently made significant headway, more than what I was lead to believe by the literature I read in the Spring. What I read in the Spring was that research money and interest had dwindled not long after MERS, and that the few labs still hammering away at the problem weren't making much progress. Unless it was just sheer luck, it seems what SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 provided was a proving ground for already well developed methodologies.