I remember someone coming up with a song to encourage people to wash their hands more thoroughly much earlier in this pandemic.

https://twitter.com/vesselofspirit/status/123748864242514739...

According to the song lyric, "novel coronavirus / has a lipid outer shell". So it seems like some viruses have taken advantage of this.

Yeah I think that's the reason for the 20-30 second wash since it takes time for the soap to break down the fatty layer.

That stupid ebola song came to mind. It's very catchy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGltVAJ4JCk

Some do: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_envelope

And it's pretty common; the flu viruses have one.

If you squint you could say that viruses are already doing that. A lipid bilayer is a key component of several kinds of membranes. All of our cells have a lipid bilayers separating the inside from the outside. The corona virus is also built from these same lipids, which is why it's vulnerable to soap.

Anyway, I think the important thing that the other commenter was saying is that mRNA needs to be carefully packaged to be medically useful. You can't inject pure RNA as a vaccine because not only is the mRNA going to be quickly degraded before it gets anywhere but if the immune system sees any RNA floating around by then it kicks itself into a frenzy because free-floating RNA is usually a sign that something nasty is afoot.

Don't give them any good ideas

They have. That spike protein is part of their envelope ("nanoparticle").

The envelopes used in an RNA vaccine are generally simpler, because they're working under different constraints than viruses. For example, their envelopes don't need to be easily manufactured in a cell.

But some RNA and DNA vaccines do use viruses as their delivery mechanisms, eg the J&J COVID vaccine.

Because some have. Phages for example.

Maybe those lipid particles are too unstable if they are not spiked with various proteins?

Moderna vaccine has to be kept in -70 C. Viruses that can survive for any extended period of time only in -70 C won't find many hosts.

Also maybe the process of creating virus shell can't naturally be done without protein scaffold.