To be fair, the blend of incentive structure and technology is a little different now.

Given that people survive it and then have large amount of antibodies, it seems likely that we can create a vaccine. While some viruses are incredibly challenging to make a vaccine for, like HIV and the flu due to the mutation rate. The coronavirus has a slower mutation rate than the flu. It may be the case that we end up needing yearly or every two year booster shots. But, the most frequent stumbling block for vaccine development is funding, which won’t be a problem for coronavirus. MERS and SARS both had promising vaccine research that were shelved because the infections died out.

> There are many viruses for which we've tried and failed to produce effective vaccines.

This is the first time in modern history where every developed country in the world has top researchers expediting work on a vaccine. A virus has never been the world's top economic and political issue until now. Comparing it to vaccine research on other viruses is irrelevant.