The "viruses aren't alive" thing is one of those weird distinctions that got set in K-12 science curricula for ages and teachers took it way too literally instead of understanding it as a simplification, to the point where the students would end up with a really wrong idea about the science (and then become teachers and continue the cycle...). The same thing with "there is no such thing as centrifugal force" and "we were the good guys in WW2".

i feel like the video stated the gray area of viruses being potentially alive and that it's still a subject of debate

If you ever study biology, you'll quickly learn that while humans like nice, neat, little discrete categories, evolution does not. One very apparent instance of this in cell biology and biochemistry, where you get down to the nitty gritty of how molecules build structures that build organisms. The point at which we decide a structure is alive (a cell) or not (a protein, lipid, carbohydrate, nucleic acid) is kind of arbitrary and subjective. If you go deep enough, you begin to see living organisms as vast complex molecular machinery, and the idea of whether something is "alive" or not makes about as much sense as asking if it can feel the Force.