system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Are viruses alive or dead?

If so, can they die or are they more closely related to a chemical reaction such as fire?
gpt
Virologist here. The alive or not alive thing tends to be a high school thought process in biology class as to what constitutes life. I’m the real world of virology, we don’t worry about that discussion. That being said, viruses are incapable of replication or metabolism on their own and require a living cell to do so. That would  mean that viruses are not “life” in the classical sense. Personally, I’d describe them as biological entities, although that would mean that we now have to debate the definition of entity…

Not alive, but they have a function and are not dead “junk” like a dead cell that will reprocessed or excreted. Hope that helps.