> Maybe we should develop responses to pathogens that have the ability to wipe humanity off the galaxy.

Not a bad idea, but isn't that a near-infinite set?

I think that's likely, but it's understandably difficult to convince anyone to spend a few hundred million dollars to develop vaccine that might never be used.

Seems like a pretty good deal right now. Our economic system has structural pathologies that make it extremely difficult to meaningfully organize whole populations.

Yeah, ok, I think I agree with this. I have to believe that a sustained effort to develop coronavirus vaccines would bear fruit, whether actual vaccines or merely processes and knowledge, even if the particular motivating disease was no longer in circulation.