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0 pointsKye2y ago0 comments

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

>> " 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.

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RandomLensman2y ago

Maybe a month, maybe not (and we don't have the counterfactual). The quote is not directly implying a speed-up from the publication on the internet vs publication in other forms. The sentence after your quote is pointing to the real speed-up:

"Since 2020, vaccine development has been expedited via unprecedented collaboration in the multinational pharmaceutical industry and between governments.[185]"

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