Vaccine design takes more than a couple of months (greater than a year), enough to apply for a patent. Which means they were studying it for a long time, maybe many years.
Pete Dovgan wrote: “Vaccine design takes more than a couple of months (greater than a year), enough to apply for a patent. Which means they were studying it for a long time, maybe many years.”
Moderna applied for a patent for COVID 19 in Jan 2020. So, no, it doesn’t take time greater than a year. The real problem with the vaccines is developing and proof testing the manufacturing process, not the design of the vaccine.