so you say. but who are you? can you patent a natural occurrence? YOU don't appear to understand the significance of the presence of a patent. it rules out naturally occurring virus, thank you, adieu.

Your post says a patent for a vaccine was filed.

Which is very different from a patent for a virus being granted.

First of all, anyone can file a patent for anything. You could file a patent for whatever stupid idea you had in a dream or while taking a hot shower. They just wouldn't be granted unless they match a few criteria.

Second of all, filing for something that could prove an effective treatment is different from trying to patent the virus itself. You can't patent water, but you could file a patent for a novel method to desalinate water, for example.

And you could file all those patents without ever making an attempt to prove that it works. Without prototype. Without any substance backing the claim that it does what you say it does.

A patent application is just the enterprise version of putting out a mildly interesting tweet. It might age well. It might not. It's just there so you can point to it and go "See? I was there first" in case it does.