Facing severe criticism for suggesting 'disinfectant injections' for treating coronavirus, US President Donald Trump took a U-turn and said that he was just being 'sarcastic'. Shocking people and scientific community around the world, Trump, during his White House press briefing on Thursday, suggested injecting disinfectants in the human body to treat coronavirus.
"I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute. One minute. Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets inside the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that," he said, while looking towards the direction of a visibly shocked and embarrassed coronavirus response coordinator Dr Deborah Birx.
Soon, the doctors and Reckitt Benckiser, the manufacturer of Lysol, a cleaning product, thrown into the 'Trump storm', were quick to issue public statements urging people to refrain from following Trump's claims.
Trump was being 'sarcastic to the reporters'
Backtracking from his outrageous claims, a visibly embarrassed Trump maintained that his comments were just a sarcastic response to the questions raised by the reporters, whom he termed as 'extraordinarily hostile people.'
On being asked to clarify his comments by the media during his Oval Office briefing on Friday, Trump said: "I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters, like you, just to see what would happen. When I was asking a sarcastic — a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside, but it does kill it, and it would kill it on the hands and that would make things much better. That was done in the form of a sarcastic question to a reporter."
Apart from disinfectants injections suggestion, Trump had also spoken about the possibility of using sunlight or a UV light as a possible treatment for treating infected people.
Trump also suggested injecting 'very powerful light'
Claiming the sunlight to be a 'very powerful light', he said that it 'could be used to "hit the body" or be brought "inside the body...either through the skin or in some other way."
Quoting the preliminary research, conducted by Department of Homeland Security, about sunlight and disinfectants capable of killing the virus on the surface, Trump said: "In other words, it does not live well with humidity and it doesn't live well with sun, sunlight, heat. It doesn't live well with heat and sun and disinfectant. And that's what I brought up, and I thought that was clear."
Twitter goes on Trump trolling spree
Soon after, Trump's outrageous claims went viral, he became a source of online trolls and memes. Twitter was trending with hashtags #TrumpIsALaughingStock, #TrumpIsALoser, #ChickenTrump, #ChickenDonald.
"I see that #TrumpIsALaughingStock is trending. Is that because he stared into a solar eclipse or that he suggested raking a forest or & that he believes windmills cause cancer or he proposed nuking a hurricane or that he suggested injecting bleach to kill COVID-19?" quipped one user.
"Trump is cutting back on briefings. Either someone convinced him he's killing himself by killing others or he's just #ChickenDonald," tweeted another. "Trump, who is incapable of critical thinking, never met conspiracy theory he won't embrace and push, which gave us disinfectant injections and UV ray cures. We do have an idiot President, who is a national danger and a world-class embarrassment!" mentioned another twitter user.
