UNITED STATES — After Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) doubled down on his claim that a “gargle” of Listerine warded off the novel coronavirus (“Hi! LISTERINE® Antiseptic mouthwash is not clinically proven to kill the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. LISTERINE® Antiseptic is a daily mouth rinse which has been proven to kill 99.9% of germs that cause bad breath, plaque and gingivitis,” Listerine responded on Twitter, when this was brought to its attention), manufacturers everywhere wondered what product would be suggested as the next covid-19 safeguard and debated whether to prepare statements of their own.
Several gums debated putting out a statement. “I mean, we’re clearly just a gum,” one gum manufacturer remarked, “but if minty freshness seems like a covid-19 repellent, we are definitely minty fresh.”
Soup producers worriedly agreed. “Like Listerine, we are a liquid you put in your mouth,” they noted. “And we at least have a preexisting relationship with disease?”
“I used to think, ‘Well, no way anyone will consider this as a possible covid remedy,’” said the manufacturer of those little packets of silica gel sometimes in shoeboxes that say “DO NOT EAT” on them. “But then I remembered … Ivermectin.”
“Maybe we’d better put out a preemptive statement of some kind,” observed the small-business owner of the firm A Box Of Crickets To Feed To Your Snake Or Do Something Else With, Once They’re Yours We Don’t Look Into It Too Closely, The Crickets Are Your Responsibility Now, But We Assume You’re Not Doing Anything Too Weird With Them. “I guess we could put it in the business name. It’s already very unwieldy, and adding ‘Also They Don’t Have Any Effect On COVID-19! In Case That Was Something You Thought Might Be The Case, It’s Not!’ wouldn’t change too much."
Manufacturers of bleach, horse supplements, and UV lights rolled their eyes at the new wave of concern from people whose products seemed in no way related to covid-19. “We’ve been in this fight for years,” they observed. “I can’t believe anyone would still be blindsided, given the things that have been suggested so far. There’s literally no product so out there that folks with Ron Johnson’s medical acumen might not recommend it as a coronavirus remedy."
Hearing this, vaccine manufacturers sighed loudly.
