“I think its the degree of exposure that determines what happens...A few drops of the virus, the body can handle, but if you are exposed to a certain amount it overwhelms the body...Thats why staying out of crowds is crucial.”
100% agree. If we couldn’t fight off the first (relative) handful of virons, we would have been wiped out at the amoeba stage. We can fight off the virons at a certain rate, and if we do, we don’t get infected (in any way) and never know it. If they start to build up in us, then they start to multiply...and so you have that added factor. Once they multiply faster than we can dispose of them, we are infected and the consequences, of course, vary greatly - from nothing to death.
So, yea, bottom line: If you’re in a cab with a vector for 20 minutes, you’ll probably get it, an elevator with a bad case, yep. But if you touch a shopping cart from someone else who didn’t sneeze on it recently - you wont. You may pick up a few virons, but your body will laugh it off (assuming reasonably healthy).
On the China bus, something like 14 people got it from the vector who sat in the back, but most didn’t get it...but you bet they all breathed it during that 4 hour bus ride!
This study... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3074351/coronavirus-can-travel-twice-far-official-safe-distance-and-stay
Now the authors have retracted it, with no explanation. When Chinese researchers or doctors are forced to retract, it makes me think there must have been too much truth. All of the articles regarding airborne spread have become hard to find now.
If we couldnt fight off the first (relative) handful of virons, we would have been wiped out at the amoeba stage.
You raise an interesting point, if you get a handful of virons, does that allow the body to essentially become resistant to it? Perhaps that explains why we tend to see this thing in clusters.