They put mice infected with a flu virus modified to have the bird variant of a gene in an oven and the virus indeed didn't degrade as much compared to the unmodified control.

I'd also argue my partner and I got Avian flu one Xmas from eating free range eggs when there was an Avian flu pandemic up the road from them in Norfolk and the British Govt ordered culls.

Tryptase:

"A striking finding was decreased tryptase content in mast cells with copper overload, whereas copper starvation increased tryptase content." [1]

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5728160/

"Influenza A viruses are negative-stranded RNA viruses. Like many other enveloped viruses, they code for a surface glycoprotein that must be cleaved by cellular proteases for activation. HA, a major influenza surface glycoprotein, is translated as a single protein, HA0. For viral activation, HA0 (assembled as trimers) must be cleaved by a trypsin-like serine endoprotease at a specific site, normally coded for by a single basic amino acid (usually arginine) between the HA1 and HA2 domains of the protein. After cleavage, the two disulfide-bonded protein domains produce the mature form of the protein subunits as a prerequisite for the conformational change necessary for fusion and hence viral infectivity" [2]

[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC33880/

I also wonder, by virtue of being a single strand of RNA, how long does it take for mutations to make the virus no longer viable in the environment it resides in?

In other words is a this a 3-4day process of replication and mutation which in effect kills itself off, rendering the need for immune system response and cough, cold, flu rememdies nothing more than containment effects?

https://news.sky.com/story/uk-prepares-five-million-vaccine-...

And then maybe that if some shit hits the fan, it'd then be a great idea to ask someone neck and tie deep in that funding and in that research to act as the "expert" to tell us if we should put masks on or not once it leaks?