Lotus wrote:Ex-Soviet scientist on the news the other day was saying that it's possible to be exposed to a non-lethal dose; it's not just exposed = death (at least not immediately). Plus if it was put on the door handle it's probably been combined with some other kind of agent, like an adhesive, which would also compromise the potency of it. The touching the door handle thing could be explained in dozens of different ways.
I think we saw the same news clip.
From memory, the chemical isn't as effective when just dropped onto bare skin compared to being inhaled or entering the blood stream which almost certainly causes a rapid death. At room temperature it's actually a liquid and less effective in this form compared to a gas being inhaled.
A tremendous amount of luck to collapse in a public place and top quality medical services no doubt helped too.
Plus "military grade" isn't a real standard and would vary massively depending on what country we refer to. If the chemical is 20+ years old and stored as a liquid, maybe it has degraded. Additionally, Russia could have deliberately weakened it and deliberately used it liquid form rather than gas due to the complexities of keeping it in gas form safely.