Growing up, I had superimposed the belief that the central circle was supposed to represent an original infected cell, and then, I thought the sharp hooks were

Growing up, I had superimposed the belief that the central circle was supposed to represent an original infected cell, and then, I thought the sharp hooks were supposed to be forming three new infected cells violently emerging from the original infected host, destroying the host in the process. The imagery seemed to make sense to me, since viruses load up in a cell, and force the cell to churn out copies until it explodes. I figured the knifey looking sharp hooks were just stylization, to communicate danger and get the point across. (see what I did there?)