A virus is a non-living thing, and we can build a meditation or philosophy based on its goal in the world.
Like months ago I saw an article about an Israeli scientist discovering a parasite that does not need to breathe.
Viruses don't need to be alive at all, and they can exist only if there are enough host living tissue to replicate and multiply them.
At any given time a version of a virus is only temporary. The virus contains a genetic program as a DNA, or double strand of RNA, or a single strand of RNA, that runs the show. The rest is a container for the programs and a receptor that fits a host's cells.
As soon as hosts seem to have efficient immune response, or get infected but do not produce enough viruses, there is a mysterious feedback that changes something in the genetic program, and first of all, the receptor is changed slightly, and according to the progress in the mass of the hosts capacity to accept or produce the virus.
This is why the common cold, flu and corvid19 viruses are basically same. They have different programs, each targeting different cells.
Their receptors are always changing, and only within a very simple parameters:
The receptors are made of H and N proteins. Each protein could be of the 1, the 2, or the 3 version. That is why these virus builds are designated HxNy depending on the current epidemic. Receptors can also contain specific numbers (a,b) of the H and N molecules. FYI, a protein molecule is always shaped like a clumped shoelace. So the formula for a receptor is like (aHx)(bNy).
All this means it is futile to research and try to weaken a virus. It will have a solution while replicating inside the cell nucleus of the (resisting) host's tissue.
The only way to resist an infection is to help one's body to preserve heat - not to catch cold - so the immune response will have the support of the fever to accelerate the multifaceted lymphocyte (macrophages, B-cells, T-cells, etc) response to the tasks of disposing of the viruses, of disposing of the subverted tissues. etc. Drinking water helps maintain the volume and the flow of the lymphatic system, which gathers the lymphocytes with their load form the tissues and delivers it all to the spleen or to the liver be digested/disassembled, accordingly.
The mysterious programming of the virus does not care for the weak host, who will die, and not help the virus agenda. Everything in the genetic program is relying on a host who can be strong enough to circulate among other strong hosts and spread the newly manufactured viruses.
In a way, you could say the common cold virus build year 2003 is weaker than than build 2008.
And there are viruses (retroviruses or related types, like herpes) that transcribe their genetic program (or a part of it) into the no longer in use (since childhood), or deactivated part of the host's DNA, and has its own mysterious activating triggers.
So it is futile to measure a virus' power, and to try to resist it. Any given vaccine against a virus will be good only versus the specific build. The most meaningful research is about finding the most constant surface area of the virus, ideally the container, and make vaccine against it, but the receptors are always obscuring (defending) the surface.
I t seems that viruses have been around, and killed people, and we could not figure it all out until Pasteur with his bacteria work, and Germans developing X-ray microscope that could shed fuzzy light into viruses being totally different from bacteria.
2 weeks ago the parsha started with the word MAGEF whose root has been reworked by the Academy of Hebrew Language as Nagif =virus. But the Tirgum (Aramaic) keeps the translation more true and not "epidemic", but "death."
To repeat the fact: it is as impossible to measure a virus power (even by statistic analysis) as it is to develop a vaccine against it.
