Had a long talk with a virologist friend. Viri, as I like to call them [incorrectly] are not *cells* but infect cells and hijack their machinery to make virus instead of what the cell had been manufacturing. So the term for a virus not currently attacking a cell is inactive, and for one rendered incapable of any such attack is No longer infectious, the goal of antivirals. But people say Live virus or killed virus alla time, in regular speech.

Bacteria are cells. They are alive or dead, depending on whether they are alive or dead. Easy-peasy.

How long this virus remains capable of infecting on various surfaces is being studied, and there are loads of data on that.

How much virus is in aerosols exhaled by infected people is also being studied, and there are loads of data on masks reducing aerosol exhalations, too.

What we are seeing here, in the US I mean, is an expected [by many of us] consequence of "respecting people's beliefs" as if they [the beliefs, not the people] were knowledge. Any country that won't teach science in case it contradicts someone's *faith* is getting what it asked for.