The Moderna covid vaccine was developed in a few hours, because extensive work had already been done on the SARS virus. They could very easily tell by homology

The Moderna covid vaccine was developed in a few hours, because extensive work had already been done on the SARS virus. They could very easily tell by homology which part of the RNA sequence coded for the spike protein. I suppose theoretically, generating novel viruses could prepare us for similarly quick vaccine design in the absence of a natural predecessor, but that would be a huge stretch requiring us to invent vast numbers of novel viruses.