Nature: How the coronavirus infects cells--and why Delta is so dangerous

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5. Holy cow. Are we sure the devil didn't create this?

I'm an atheist, I'm kidding, and humble enough that I'm not gonna get in front of scientists. But geez:

First, some of the newly made viral spike proteins travel to the surface of the cell and poke out of the host-cell membrane. There, they activate a host calcium-ion channel, which expels a fatty coating onto the outside of the cell — the same coating found on cells that naturally fuse together, such as muscle cells. At this point, the infected cell fuses to neighbouring cells expressing ACE2, developing into massive individual respiratory cells filled with up to 20 nuclei.

These fused structures, called syncytia, are induced by viral infections such as HIV and herpes simplex virus, but not by the SARS virus,