@mikedesi2020- Mike, good morning. You have asked a great question- what is "alive"? There is often a fine line between life and non-living in many things. Something can be "not alive," but cause a lot of damage by depending on a live host to do its work, such as this virus.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-viruses-alive-2004/
Please keep this in mind, this virus leads to the death of a lot of people. The death process is horrible. People literally suffocate as their bodies are deprived of air. And it's extremely contagious. The so-called "panic" is the fear of dying this way. Plain and simple.
Here's a short quote from this article: "Viruses, however, parasitize essentially all biomolecular aspects of life. That is, they depend on the host cell for the raw materials and energy necessary for nucleic acid synthesis, protein synthesis, processing and transport, and all other biochemical activities that allow the virus to multiply and spread. One might then conclude that even though these processes come under viral direction, viruses are simply nonliving parasites of living metabolic systems. But a spectrum may exist between what is certainly alive and what is not."

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