Medics lambast Trump for considering disinfectant as Covid-19 measure

Published by Ross Hindle on April 25th 2020, 12:12pm

At Thursday's White House Covid-19 briefing, US President Donald Trump discussed a number of prevention measures for Covid-19 in a presentation on infection "best practices" for American citizens.

These included the advice that "activities" be moved outside where possible, as the virus apparently only survives for a few minutes in UV light, and further advocating the use of bleach or cleaning alcohol, which can kill the virus in just a few minutes.

When speaking about disinfectant, however, Mr Trump shocked members of the medical community in the audience -- and beyond -- when he seemingly seriously entertained the possibility of administering disinfectant intravenously.

Put simply, he discussed the idea of injecting it into people to combat the virus.

Dr Eugene Gu, who works in a Covid-19 testing laboratory, described the president's comments as "absolutely wrong and irresponsible".

"Clorox, Tide Pods and Lysol will kill coronavirus. No question about it. But if you are infected, then the coronavirus is inside your cells.

"If you use any of those disinfectants to kill the coronavirus in your own cells then you'll die right along with the coronavirus."

Professor Robert Reich, who teaches public policy at Berkeley in California and a previous labour secretary said in a tweet that the president's briefings were "actively endangering the public's health".

In case it wasn't clear enough, he followed up by urging people not to pre-empt the president's brainstorming with action.

"Please don't drink disinfectant."

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Ross Hindle
Content Director
April 25th 2020, 12:12pm

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