Much of the discussion here centers upon "race" and its use in the headline and in the medical literature. A better term might be "genetic variation" as it has less baggage than "race".

What is significant is genetic variation tends to be geographically distributed. https://www-nature-com.stanford.idm.oclc.org/articles/ng1435. Making a universally effective vaccine needs to start off with a geographically diverse sample of both the virus and the population to be vaccinated.