Shortage can make bad situation worse

Did you see the COVID-19 news conference the other day featuring a particularly noted, well-published, and often-quoted professor of epidemiology?

Dr. Angus Jones-Brown has been studying virus transmission for many decades, and the data accumulated over those many years seems to rather clearly indicate, against all previous thought, that most of these viruses proliferate not by passing into our airways via our noses or by traveling through other mucous membranes. In fact, the professor says that, as odd as this may sound, many viruses, actually much weaker than you might think, seem to be inhibited by the blue to blue-violet wavelength range (492-425 nanometers) of the spectrum.

Jones-Brown’s further research indicates that a porous and soft cloth of a blue color, supplemented by common copper (Element Cu, Group 11, Atomic Number 29) and passed over a person’s feet when those feet are higher than that individual’s head (a position known as hyperpedisquelaltudia), provides almost complete immunity to most viruses, including all coronaviruses and COVID-19 in particular.

I won’t bore you with all of the scientific details, chemical equations, and medical jargon that the erudite professor shared in the article; it gets pretty deep. And I hope you’ll note that the reason his research caught my eye specifically was because his test subjects were taken from the exact demographic group into which I fit. Thus I hope you will please understand that his research and conclusion may not be applicable to individuals in other cohorts at all.

But I quote here from what I consider to be the most important note in the “Conclusions” section of his article “abstract.” It reads: “Based upon the absence of other comorbidities and aberrant prognosticological criteria, gray-haired males in late middle age, with myopia corrected by contacts, healthy blood pressure, marriages of over forty years, and who drink prodigious amounts of coffee are well-advised to put on blue suede shoes, stand on their heads, and stack copper BBs up their noses as a probable, though not absolutely conclusive, antiviral barrier against COVID-19.”

And there you have it.

I’m not sure what. But you have it.

I admit that no one who is not a doctor or a hypochondriac should read as many PubMed articles as I do. (My doctor will agree.) What I’m quoting above is completely out of my head.

I really don’t mean to poke fun at a terribly serious situation, but I do indeed mean to poke fun at the way some of us — me included, I promise — react during said situation. Some of those gullible reactions have made a bad situation worse in ways that we could easily have avoided with just a little common sense. Two words, and I rest my case: toilet paper.

Who was the second idiot who heard the first idiot say, “I dunno, Harv, we might run outta toilet paper during this virus mess. I think ...” Better that he’d have said, “I dunno, Harv, let’s just jump off a cliff and do it before anybody else can.” I wonder if really determined folks with a TP-hoarder mindset would’ve just lined up for the flight? Maybe we’d have been spared the non-shortage shortage.

Or maybe he should have just told his buddy, “Well, I read somewhere that ya won’t catch this if you put on blue suede shoes, stand on your head, and stack copper BBs up your nose.” It would have made as much sense as stashing toilet paper.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that it’s always best not to make a bad situation worse by making bad and unnecessary choices that end up truly making it worse. For. No. Reason.

In any case, a word of heartfelt thanks to all of the many, many folks, working in so many ways, obvious or not, but brave and steadfast nonetheless, who keep working at real risk. And my prayers also with all who are hurting in any way, and the many who very much wish they were still working.

And one more word for us all: faith. Just ask your Father for it. His strength is available when ours isn’t. No shortage. Real or imagined. No shortage at all.

Curtis Shelburne writes about faith for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at

[email protected]