During an April 23 press conference, Trump suggested investigating if light, whether ultraviolet or “just very powerful light,” and injecting disinfectant, may be remedies to COVID-19.

So I asked Bill a question some of you are thinking of if you’re into that world, which I find to be pretty interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether its ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said, that hasn’t been checked but you’re gonna test it. And then I said, supposing it brought the light inside the body, which you can either do either through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you’re gonna test that too, sounds interesting.

 

And I then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way you 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 you’re going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it goes in one minute, that’s pretty powerful.

Dr. Deborah Birx, Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House COVID-19 task force, was on camera during the remarks.

The FDA and makers of Lysol issued statements warning against ingesting disinfectants. Trump previously promoted unproven drug treatments and continually dismissed COVID-19 concerns.

At the time of his remarks, the United States had over 860,000 cases and 50,000 deaths.

Trump later claimed that his remarks were sarcastic:

I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen.

Multiple reports followed of people ingesting bleach and other chemicals to combat the virus. The Republican Governor of Maryland and Democratic Governor of Michigan noted that they’d received hundreds of calls asking about whether it was safe to do so, though Trump said he couldn’t imagine why.

The New York Times – Makers of Lysol Warn Against Ingesting Disinfectants
CNN – Don’t eat or inject yourself with disinfectant, warns FDA commissioner
The Hill – Trump says remarks about heat, light, disinfectant were sarcastic
CBS 46 – Georgia men reportedly drink bleach, Pine-sol and more to prevent Covid-19
The Hill – Calls to poison control centers spike after Trump disinfectant comments
COVID-19 Dashboard by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)