Eli5-If a virus isn’t technically alive, I would assume it doesn’t have instinct. Where does it get its instructions/drive to know to infect host cells and multiply?
In: 7067
A virus is in simple terms a container and a set of instructions.
The container typically has a few contact points that can detect when it comes into contact with a suitable host cell. At which point it attaches and dumps the instructions into the cell.
The instructions are how to take over a cell’s inner machinery and instead of doing what it usually does, only make more virus instructions and containers. The infected cell usually does this until it dies, at which point the newly made viruses are released.
The virus has little ability to sense or react to its environment, so usually just goes along inert until it comes into contact with a suitable host cell. Some viruses can’t survive long outside a host cell, some are very hardy and are able to be inert for long periods of time outside a host cell.
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