Whether viruses are alive or not is purely a matter of definition. Alive in this context means that it can infect host cells and replicate. Contrary to what t

Whether viruses are alive or not is purely a matter of definition. Alive in this context means that it can infect host cells and replicate. Contrary to what the sibling posts say, that doesn't just require intact viral RNA, which by itself is not infectious, but an intact viral assembly, i.e in this case a lipid hull with various accessory proteins, such as the nucleocapsid that packs the RNA and the spike protein that binds to host cells.