"Zinc promotes immune functions and helps people resist infectious diseases including diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria14,15,16."
https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/micronutrient-malnutrition/micronutrients/index.html
"Increased intracellular zinc concentrations efficiently impair the replication of a number of RNA viruses.1"
https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/supplements/zinc/
"This review summarizes current basic science and clinical evidence examining zinc as a direct antiviral, as well as a stimulant of antiviral immunity. An abundance of evidence has accumulated over the past 50 y to demonstrate the antiviral activity of zinc against a variety of viruses, and via numerous mechanisms. The therapeutic use of zinc for viral infections such as herpes simplex virus and the common cold has stemmed from these findings; however, there remains much to be learned regarding the antiviral mechanisms and clinical benefit of zinc supplementation as a preventative and therapeutic treatment for viral infections."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31305906/
"Increasing the intracellular Zn(2+) concentration with zinc-ionophores like pyrithione (PT) can efficiently impair the replication of a variety of RNA viruses, including poliovirus and influenza virus. For some viruses this effect has been attributed to interference with viral polyprotein processing"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21079686/
"The results of reviewed studies have shown that zinc and some zinc-dependent proteins are involved in anti-viral defense and immune regulation in the respiratory tract. It seems that zinc can reduce the viral titer following influenza infection. Zinc may reduce RSV burden in the lungs. Zinc can be effective in reducing the duration of viral pneumonia symptoms."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8349606/
"Along with zinc, Cu possesses strong virucidal capabilities and is known to be effective at neutralizing a variety of infectious viruses, including the poliovirus, influenza virus, HIV type 1, and other enveloped or nonenveloped, single- or double-stranded DNA and RNA viruses"
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023BTER..202.1524A/abstract
"We show that zinc not only inhibits the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro) with nanomolar affinity, but also viral replication"
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34514483/
"In addition, we have plenty evidence of zinc virucidal activity against rhinoviruses [59–61], respiratory syncytial virus [62], vaccinia virus [63], HSV [64] and HIV-1 [65] but exact virus inactivation mechanism is mostly unknown"
https://bmcmicrobiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12866-016-0675-x