This touches on something I’ve been wondering about—but suspect it may well be a purely academic type question.
Viral infections (possibly all infections) is largely a random chemical reaction that occurs. The virus has to randomly bump into the right type of cell (perhaps with the right orientation) and perhaps the right part of the cell. In fact, the virus could bump into something that effectively neutralizes the virus.
So what are the probabilities for that event?
Given the infection rates, clearly the combination of both the quantity of viruses and the probability of success for any given virus is pretty high. But still, I wonder about the one virus probability of success. Then we would also have some clue about just how far we can expect all the hygiene effort is really going to accomplish.
This touches on something I’ve been wondering about—but suspect it may well be a purely academic type question.
Viral infections (possibly all infections) is largely a random chemical reaction that occurs. The virus has to randomly bump into the right type of cell (perhaps with the right orientation) and perhaps the right part of the cell. In fact, the virus could bump into something that effectively neutralizes the virus.
So what are the probabilities for that event?
Given the infection rates, clearly the combination of both the quantity of viruses and the probability of success for any given virus is pretty high. But still, I wonder about the one virus probability of success. Then we would also have some clue about just how far we can expect all the hygiene effort is really going to accomplish.