All coronavirus in the world would fit in a coke can
All the Covid-causing virus circulating in the world right now could easily fit inside a single cola can, according to a calculation by a British mathematician whose sum exposes just how much devastation is caused by minuscule viral particles.
Using global rates of new infections with the pandemic disease, coupled with estimations of viral load, Bath University maths expert Kit Yates worked out there are around two quintillion - or two billion billion - SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in the world at any one time.
Detailing the steps in his calculations, Yates said he used the diameter of SARS-CoV-2 - at an average of about 100 nanometers, or 100 billionths of a meter - and then figured out the volume of the spherical virus.
Even accounting for the coronavirus' projecting spike proteins and the fact that the spherical particles will leave gaps when stacked together, the total is still less than in a single 330 millilitre (ml) cola can, he said.
"It's astonishing to think that all the trouble, the disruption, the hardship and the loss of life that has resulted over the last year could constitute just a few mouthfuls," Yates said in a statement.
More than 2.3 million people have died in the Covid-19 pandemic so far, and there have been almost 107 million confirmed cases worldwide.
Based on latest reports, the countries with the most new deaths were the United States with 3,266 new deaths, followed by Brazil with 1,330 and Mexico with 1,328. The United States is the worst-affected country with 471,575 deaths from 27,287,341 cases.
After the US, the hardest-hit countries are Brazil with 234,850 deaths from 9,659,167 cases, Mexico with 169,760 deaths from 1,957,889 cases, India with 155,360 deaths from 10,871,294 cases, and the United Kingdom with 114,851 deaths from 3,985,161 cases.
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