On Thursday, Donald Trump held another press bashing in the White House to provide updates on the pandemic and tips for surviving COVID-19. The briefing came as the United States hit a rather grim mile marker, surpassing 50,000 deaths from the coronavirus.
Aside from the usual Trump updates on what a tremendous job he is doing, he veered off into treatment options again. You’d think after he shot his mouth off about hydroxychloroquine and an Arizona man actually died from taking it that he’d back off the medical advice and leave that to the experts. But, no. He bizarrely and inaccurately said maybe we could use UV light inside the human body and went on to say maybe the lungs could be cleaned with disinfectant. He actually said perhaps people should be ingesting or injecting disinfectant. If you are reading this, let us be clear—DO NOT INJECT OR INGEST DISINFECTANT.
So, watch as a member of the coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, listens to Trump explore the idea of Americans using disinfectant to treat the coronavirus. See if you can pinpoint the exact moment she dies a little inside:
It was less than a month ago when Dr. Birx told the Christian Broadcast News that Donald Trump was, “so attentive to the scientific literature & the details & the data. I think his ability to analyze & integrate data that comes out of his long history in business has really been a real benefit.” I think we can clearly call out that lie now.
Brianna Wu, congressional candidate for 8th District of Massachusetts, shared video of her husband, Frank Wu, reacting to the press conference. Dr. Wu has a Ph.D. in bacterial genetics.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta told CNN host Anderson Cooper we don’t need to study whether injecting or ingesting disinfectant could be beneficial. Gupta told Cooper, “I mean, we know the answer to this one. There’s a lot of things out there we don’t know the answers to and we need to investigate.” Gupta went on to add, “But the idea we would do a trial of some sort, inject some people with disinfectant, and some people not, and see what happens, I mean as you point out, I think everybody would know that would be dangerous and counterproductive, and not at all moving us in the right direction.”
The manufacturer of Lysol very, very quickly issued a statement advising people not to ingest or inject their products under any circumstances.
The surgeon general has also weighed in Friday morning:
Dr. Esther Choo went on MSNBC after the press conference to express her real concern that some “impressionable” Americans would actually take Donald Trump’s advice.
Again, please do not take any medical advice from anyone named Trump. Ever.