You state "Viruses are not living things as they can’t reproduce on their own. Rather, they’re just bits of genetic code wrapped inside an envelope of lipids (fat), protein, etc." Do I understand your explanation than that virus' are not of nature but man-made?
No. Viruses are natural but they can’t reproduce on their own. They rely on the host cells they are in to reproduce. Bacteria can reproduce on their own.
Of course that isn’t implied. Viruses have been around long before the advent of modern bioengineering technology.
No, nature puts things together via chemistry. In the case of a virus, this either happened by an additive process (i.e. starting with a strand of genetic material and st some point a protein coat was added to it) or a reductive process (i.e. a larger structure lost bits and pieces until all that was left was this protein coat and genetic material). There are even stranger things which still work. Viroids are like a virus, but without even the protein coat. Prions are just a protein. Both are still infectious and can cause major issues. Both are observed all the time in nature.
Viruses have been around for a long, long time. Smallpox had been around for about 3,500 years before it was eradicated from the world. Just because it can't reproduce on its own doesn't mean it can't still come about without man's influence. It simply takes the right environment for the chemistry to take over. A basic cell membrane (phospholipid bilayer) will form spontaneously given the right environment.