I'd be curious to know where this research was performed. They expected 'co-incubation' might produce a variant that escapes prior immunity, as represented by

I'd be curious to know where this research was performed. They expected 'co-incubation' might produce a variant that escapes prior immunity, as represented by convalescent plasma containing antibodies. They performed this co-incubation for "more than 90 days". They confirmed what they were looking for – what they were essentially trying to create: a virus with a novel collection of mutations that escaped immunity. It was thus plausibly gain-of-function research, aka "Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen research", on a virus whose danger level was far beyond "Potential Pandemic Pathogen". This research enhanced an actual pandemic pathogen. Did it pass gain-of-function review? How secure was the lab it occurred in? Note that some theorize the Omicron variant, now causing panic & fresh travel bans around the world, originated from a long-lived infection in an immunocompromised patient – where it had time, like in this experiment, to incrementally add many mutations over many generations. Omicron was perhaps even under the selective pressure of a similar external-antibodies treatment.