Trump has suggested that injecting disinfectant in people would help beat corona.
When Donald Trump suggested injecting people with disinfectant or blasting UV light under their skin to help beat coronavirus, the doctor leading the US fight against the disease appeared to visibly lose the will to live.
Dr Deborah Birx, head of Mr Trump’s Covid-19 task force, was silent as the president made his dangerous and nonsensical suggestions to the media at a White House press conference on Thursday.
Birx’s reaction, made into slow-motion by viewers on social media, has gone viral, with one person tweeting:
Did Dr Birx realise she had sold her soul, after hearing Trump’s latest s**t on using UV Light and injecting yourself with disinfectant?.
The president, who has no scientific qualifications, stunned viewers with his claims, which one medical expert has described as ‘jaw-dropping’.
Discussing new US government research on how the virus reacts to different temperatures, climates and surfaces, Trump told the media briefing:
Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light? And I think you said, that hasn’t been checked out, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too.
He added:
And then I see the disinfectant, here it knocks 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, so it’d be interesting to check that. So, that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me.’
Medical experts have been quick to warn the public against injecting disinfectant or using UV light to treat symptoms of Covid-19, which has so far killed 49,963 American people, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally.
Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and a former labor secretary, tweeted:
Trump’s briefings are actively endangering the public’s health. Boycott the propaganda. Listen to the experts. And please don’t drink disinfectant.
The president has previously infuriated the medical community by claiming hydroxychloroquine, a malaria treatment, could be a potential Covid-19 drug. Clinical trials have so far shown no evidence that it is effective against coronavirus.