>>41444855 (OP)
well i'll be honest with you, i think it's unlikely that a comet 60 AU away had any impact on the pandemic
also it wasn't visible back then, it'd have been far too tiny, we can't even get good pictures of Pluto or Neptune and they're like 1000x bigger. it was discovered this year for this reason. however, we know enough about how objects move in space (it's very predictable, just vectors and gravity) so we can back-plot its route based on what we've observed
the vaccine wasn't rushed. it went through the same rigorous testing as most medicines, including lab trials, clinical testing, approvals, and simulations. mRNA vaccines are not new, even if you hadn't heard about them until this vaccine. no steps were skipped, it's just that some (when possible) were done simultaneously instead of sequentially, and approvals were prioritized instead of being added to the queue. a typical FDA approval takes 6 months, COVID vaccines took 2 months. not a huge difference, though of course at the time it was important to get a handle on the spread. which it did.