On Thursday, President Donald Trump suggested injecting humans with disinfectants for the treatment of coronavirus. During the press briefing, he said, “Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light. Supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way.”
“Then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks (the virus) out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs.”
White House coronavirus advisor Deborah Birx and other health experts were baffled by this advice of Trump.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control sent out a warning about using household cleaners and disinfectants. “Household cleaners and disinfectants can cause health problems when not used properly. Follow the instructions on the product label to ensure safe and effective use,” the CDC said.
CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta said on the network Friday that ‘it is a matter of life and death’. He said, “There are some things that we know and there are not true as well. I think I was really struck by the fact that they were talking about disinfectants or possible ingesting or injecting these disinfectants. They said, well, look, why don’t we just study it? It was presented as a very reasonable thing. Why don’t you just study it? That’s crazy. It is just lunacy because everyone knows this is dangerous, and in order to study it, what you are suggesting is that you would knowingly give some people these disinfectants in their body…You would definitively harm people. We don’t need a study to show that.”
Joe Biden, the former vice president tweeted, “I can’t believe I have to say this, but please don’t drink bleach.”
Later, on Friday, after his comments went viral and received flak from all over, Trump tried to defend himself by saying that he was asking the question “sarcastically to reporters just to see what would happen”.
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