This link is for @masterofballs@wolfballs.com , who had a lot of curiosity regarding if it was possible to see Covid directly.

Sadly, the only way to see the 3D ball structure of the Virus is under an electron microscope. The prices have dropped for those, from >1M$ 10 years ago, to 75000$ second hand today (https://tssmicroscopy.com/instruments/categories/scanning-electron-microscopes/page/2/). Hopefully it will be affordable to DIYers in the next 10 years.

However.... I found cheaper ways to see virus replication in a cell culture (petri dish). For example in the picture below you can see C19 in nose cells from autopsies of C19 patients.

Image

Cells are stained with special dyes which color specific things, for example DNA pieces of C19 virus. Under fluorescent light, these pigments light up very brightly and can be seen with optical confocal microscopes. One example of a C19 dye - orf1ab-sense is sold here:

https://acdbio.com/search/site/%252A859151%252A/cms/probes

These microscopes are relatively cheap (on Ebay I saw a high end one for 4000$), and are everywhere. For the curious, it should be possible to find a lab or biohacker workshop with one.

Process to stain the cells is in this paper, under "Method details":

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867421012824

For people who have not worked in a lab, probably this sounds like mumbo jumbo. If you don't understand something, feel free to ask :)