Approval is one thing involving a whole world of bureaucracy. But the Moderna vaccine was designed by January 13, 2020 and took just 2 days. 2 days plus decades of prior research... This was before the first identified case in the US and in fact before China or the WTO recognised that it could be transmitted between humans.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/moderna-covid-19-vac...