EXCERPT

The BU study took part of one virus, omicron, and part of another virus – what they were calling the Washington State virus, but think of it as the original strain that came to the U.S. from Wuhan, China, in early 2020. They took a very small part of the genome of omicron virus – the spike protein, which lets the virus break into the host cells – and combined it with the rest of the genome from the Washington State virus, which they called the backbone. And they said, "Let's see what happens!" And that's where people like me say, "What the heck are you thinking?"