Trump touts idea of injecting disinfectant, light into the body to combat coronavirus

President Trump suggested that medical experts should somehow try to find a way to inject light or disinfectants into the human body as a means to kill coronavirus — methods that are either not possible or highly dangerous.

Trump touted the idea Thursday after William Bryan, who leads the Department of Homeland Security’s science and technology division, gave a presentation on research his team has conducted that shows that coronavirus doesn’t live as long in warmer and more humid temperatures.

Daily Mail headline: "Donald Trump suggests INJECTING people with 'disinfectant' and hitting 'the body with light' to cure coronavirus in bizarre outburst after official shows 'study' which says sunlight kills it off - then says 'I'm not a doctor'" ... https://t.co/yOqJovtNgf

— Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) April 24, 2020

Trump, who has previously said he has a “natural ability” for understanding medicine, added that injecting heat and light under the skin may be effective in countering symptoms of a disease that has already killed nearly 50,000 Americans.

Trump wondered if scientists could find some way to “hit the body” with ultraviolet or “just very powerful” light and also see if they could inject the body with disinfectants to get rid of the virus.

"The disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. It gets in the lungs" -- Trump seems to suggests that injecting disinfectant inside people could be a treatment for the coronavirus pic.twitter.com/amis9Rphsm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 23, 2020

“I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute,” Trump said. “And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

Take Camera 2 pic.twitter.com/mV9oQAnExm

— Phil Williams (@NC5PhilWilliams) April 24, 2020

Trump then asked Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, if she’d ever heard of such a means of killing a virus inside the body. “Not as a treatment,” Birx answered.

Please don't eat tide pods or inject yourself with any kind of disinfectant.

If you do need help with #COVID19 issues, we have lots of resources at https://t.co/C4x8jjWL0x

Just don't make a bad situation worse.

— WA Emergency Management (@waEMD) April 23, 2020

With Dr. Brix looking at the floor, Trump expressed interest in injecting COVID-19 patients with DISINFECTANT. "Sounds interesting to me." Wow!
Just because you keep saying "I'm not a doctor" (really?!) doesn't make what comes out of your mouth any less stupid--or dangerous! https://t.co/xLKoZQxse6

— Michael Steele (@MichaelSteele) April 24, 2020

US orders group to stop selling bleach 'miracle cure' for coronavirus https://t.co/vhH6E9xxd7

— Guardian Australia (@GuardianAus) April 21, 2020