airborne HIV¶

SARS-CoV-2 is not "airborne HIV," because it's not a retrovirus. It doesn't have reverse transcriptase; it can't insert itself into your genome.

However, it doesn't need to. It doesn't change your genome, but it does change gene expression. Where HIV makes a permanent home for itself in your immune cells, SARS2 makes something more like a temporary barricade. It locks itself in, tries its best to pump out as many offspring as possible, but then eventually, the temporary base will get destroyed. A lot of viruses do that, but SARS2 is very good at it. One of the ways it keeps its field bases going for so long is with a terror campaign. It forces cells to flood the area with warning signals, driving the counter-insurgency forces crazy trying to smoke it out. T-cells become permanently activated, the reserve supply gets depleted, and lots of "innocent" cells get caught in the crossfire.

Meanwhile, the virus quietly sends out the next wave to repeat the cycle. More field bases, more chaos, more immune damage. It's its OWN type of immunodeficiency syndrome. Nothing like the HIV modus operandi. But still very, very dangerous.

And yes. It's much more transmissible.