Most of the years skipped though was red tape, bureaucratic slog, fundraising, clinical trial participant recruiting, and having a high enough absolute risk of

Most of the years skipped though was red tape, bureaucratic slog, fundraising, clinical trial participant recruiting, and having a high enough absolute risk of infection in the population that it was not long at all to have a significant difference in effect between treatment arms. It probably helps that there's now a well develiped framework for mRNA and adenovirus vector vaccine approval, but ultimately any new antigen could certainly be unsafe and future candidates are going to require every bit as much testing and won't get most of the expeditiory benefits the first generation of COVID vaccines experienced.