Sum, by a UK expert, reveals that “just a few bits” of virus particles are causing the global coronavirus pandemic.
All COVID-causing viruses circulating in the world could now easily fit into a single glue can, according to a calculation by a British mathematician whose sum exposes how much devastation is caused by tiny viral particles.
Using global rates of new infections with the pandemic disease, along with viral load estimates, Bath University mathematics expert Kit Yates found that there are almost two quintillion – or two billion billion – particles of the new coronavirus, or SARS -CoV2, in the world at any time.
Detailing the steps of his calculations in an article published on the news site The Conversation, Yates said he used the diameter of SARS-CoV-2 – an average of about 100 nanometers, or 100 billionths of a meter – and then discovered the spherical virus volume.
The total volume of SARS-CoV-2 in the world could fit inside a can of glue.https: //t.co/T6KbBrDi1z
Animation of @VickiGSP pic.twitter.com/ZQio5Colzq
– Kit Yates (@Kit_Yates_Maths) February 10, 2021
Even taking into account coronavirus’s peak projection proteins and the fact that spherical particles leave gaps when stacked, the total is still less than in a single 330 milliliter (11.16 oz) can of glue, he said .
“It is surprising to think that all the problems, interruptions, difficulties and loss of life that resulted in the last year could constitute just a few sips of what would undoubtedly be the worst drink in history,” said Yates in his article.
More than 2.34 million people have died of COVID-19 so far, and there have been almost 107 million confirmed cases worldwide, according to data collected by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.