I see, thanks for the reply!

I was thinking that maybe because Covid is an RNA virus, there would be a shortcut to getting the mRNA sequence for creating the spike protein. The scientists could peek at the RNA in the actual virus, recognize the spike protein, and put that in the vaccine. Whereas with a DNA virus, it would require extra work.

But from your answer, it sounds like that's not what they do? Or, maybe they could do that but it's not any easier than working backwards from the amino acid sequence.

This stuff is all very interesting!