Thursday night, during a press conference, Donald Trump foolishly stated that doctors may be able to cure coronavirus in patients if they inject disinfectants like bleach directly into the lungs of the infected.
“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 … It sounds interesting to me,” Trump stated.
Despite the careless statement, health agencies across the country warned people not to ingest household disinfectants if they thought they had coronavirus-like symptoms.
In the hours following his bogus claims, there reportedly was a spike in people making 911 calls claiming to have ingested household disinfectants.
The New York Daily News reports that the Poison Control Center (PCS) has managed a total of 30 cases of possible exposure or ingestion of household disinfectants between 9 p.m. Thursday night and 3 p.m. Friday. According to a spokesperson, none of the people who claimed to have ingested disinfectants have died.
While this may not seem like a large number of cases, the PCS only reported 13 cases in the same 18 hour time frame last year. The spokesperson also stated that 9 of the 30 cases were regarding the ingestion of Lysol, 10 cases were regarding bleach, and the other 11 cases were regarding other household cleaners. Data shows that during this time last year there were no cases reported about Lysol and only 2 were reported about bleach.
On Friday, Trump backtracked on his statement saying that “I [He] said it sarcastically.”