Those few actors would have had to wait until it spread somewhere they have visibility in to before they could start a weeks-long sequencing process. It might h

Those few actors would have had to wait until it spread somewhere they have visibility in to before they could start a weeks-long sequencing process. It might have only added a month or two, but that's a lot of lives saved. The wikipedia page also credits it with speeding the process up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccine#History >> " Its genetic sequence was published on 11 January 2020, triggering an urgent international response to prepare for an outbreak and hasten the development of a preventive COVID-19 vaccine.[182][183][184]" I haven't checked the citations, but I would expect an edit war if that were controversial.