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A comment on The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function Debate (2015). Parent comment

Re:The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function ... by burfog on Monday August 10, 2020 @02:29PM (#24112428)
We created the live polio vaccine by breeding. That was long before fancy genetic technology.

Flu viruses are particularly easy to breed. Viruses have short generation times and easy vulnerability to genetic damage. Flu viruses even have a genome that isn't in one chunk, sort of like having chromosomes, making them extra easy to breed.

Selection is a simple matter of having it reproduce quickly in the desired cells.

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Re:The Reemergent 1977 H1N1 Strain and the Gain-of-Function ... by fastaguy88 on Monday August 10, 2020 @07:25PM (#24115397)
All this is true, but does not explain how to breed a flu virus with the appropriate disease causing attributes while keeping it virtually (>97%) identical.
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