COVID -WORLD - FITS : COKE CAN

LONDON : 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 exposed just how much devastation is caused by the 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 - Cov2 virus particles in the world at any 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 billions of a meter - and then figured out the volume of the spherical virus.

Even accounting for the corornavirus projecting spike proteins and the fact that the spherical particles will leave gaps when stacked together, the total is 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 could constitute just a few mouthfuls,'' Yates said in a  statement. More than 2.34 million people have died in the Covid-19 pandemic so far, and there have been almost 107 million confirmed cases worldwide. [Reuters]