I’m not a scientist. I’ve never played one on television or anywhere. But there’s this — real, scientific information from reputable sources that all says the same thing: copper is almost uniquely qualified to “fight” viruses. We should be taking advantage of that fact as much as we can — especially if it costs nothing (relatively speaking).

Here’s the paper in its entirety. ScienceDirect has been judged highly factual by the Journal of the Medical Library Association. Here’s the abstract:

Copper (Cu) is an essential micronutrient for both pathogens and the hosts during viral infection. Cu is involved in the functions of critical immune cells such as T helper cells, B cells, neutrophils natural killer (NK) cells, and macrophages. These blood cells are involved in the killing of infectious microbes, in cell-mediated immunity and the production of specific antibodies against the pathogens. Cu-deficient humans show an exceptional susceptibility to infections due to the decreased number and function of these blood cells. Besides, Cu can kill several infectious viruses such as bronchitis virus, poliovirus, human immunodeficiency virus type 1(HIV-1), other enveloped or nonenveloped, single- or double-stranded DNA and RNA viruses. Moreover, Cu has the potent capacity of contact killing of several viruses, including SARS‐CoV‐2. Since the current outbreak of the COVID-19 continues to develop, and there is no vaccine or drugs are currently available, the critical option is now to make the immune system competent to fight against the SARS‐CoV‐2. Based on available data, we hypothesize that enrichment of plasma copper levels will boost both the innate and adaptive immunity in people. Moreover, owing to its potent antiviral activities, Cu may also act as a preventive and therapeutic regime against COVID-19.

All highlights are mine.

The paper states that while most people get an “adequate” amount of copper from their diets, absorption can be compromised by a dietary imbalance of other minerals or metals — zinc in particular. The more copper there is in your diet, the better as copper is so critical to our immune systems functioning at their best.

As the paper’s authors put it: “We hypothesize that copper supplementation can help fight COVID19, especially in older people where marginal or severe deficiency of Cu is a strong possibility.” Eating more copper will boost your immune system — for real. More than that, the presence of copper in your blood and gut make it far harder for the coronavirus to make you a host.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when the people running the country ignore science because it’s politically and financially inconvenient. They think sticking their heads in the sand and pretending there isn’t a problem will make the problem go away. As we all know — they’ve got that wrong.

We pretty much have to save ourselves by ourselves for now — same way we have to save our government from the monstrous greed machine it’s been turned into. We can help defend ourselves via diet. Since we’re all going to be wearing masks for a while, we might as well make them as effective as possible in both keeping others safe from our spew and us safe from theirs.

Foods that deliver a solid copper-load: beef liver (the king — by a long shot), oysters, dark chocolate, potatoes, mushrooms…

So — diet really is one thing we can do to help ourselves (which, in turn, helps everyone else). Now let’s talk masks — unless you’re wearing medical grade, none of these masks is virus proof. Viruses are tiny and the weave holding a mask together not so tiny. But if cloth masks can prevent 85% of virus particles from getting to your face, then a trip through that includes copper might make that last 15% less dangerous and more susceptible to your high-in-copper diet.

For a few dollars more — if those dollars are available (not a certainty these days), putting copper in your mask adds one more inexpensive way to protect yourself — if you’re of a mind to.

Another of copper’s benefits is its constancy. Not much degrades its pathogen-fighting qualities. Even if worn down, copper still works. In theory, a handful of pennies should work as a makeshift hand sanitizer — provided the pennies are clean, of course — and provided you could get pennies into all your hands’ nooks and crannies.

Maybe it’s not a bad idea to weave more cotton into more places. On the plus side, it works. On the double plus side, copper’s so cheap, we use it in pennies so adding copper thread to a fabric shouldn’t break the bank.

Will copper prevent anyone from getting sick? I have no idea. Will doing nothing prevent anyone from getting sick? I still have no idea. All I know is I do NOT want this virus anywhere near me. If adding a little more copper to my life is what I gotta do?

Where’s the hard part?