It wasn't a surprise result, you say? Then how could it be that lockdowns were lifted in the US with barely 50% of the population vaccinated AND without approval for children?
Let's acknowledge that at least some of the stuff we're seeing is being driven by politics to the detriment of actual science. Some of that might even include (gasp) information about vaccines.
I don't know how phizer/moderna/etc balance needs to develop different drugs against all possible variants but I expect that once a strong variant emerges they are well incentivized (financially and culturally) to scale up development against it.
The real surprise is how slowly our social and political institutions respond, not our pharma institutions.