President of the United States, Donald Trump suggested injecting disinfectant that would clean your lungs and the use of ultraviolet light to fight the coronavirus.
Trump made the suggestion of injecting disinfectants into the body after the US Department of Homeland Security Acting Undersecretary William Bryan addressed research and development at Thursday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing.
WILLIAM BRYAN, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: We are also testing disinfectants, readily available. We have tested bleach, we have tested isopropyl alcohol on the virus specifically in saliva or respiratory fluids — I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes, isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds and that is with no manipulation no rubbing, just spring it on and leaving it go. You rub it and it goes away even faster. We are also looking at other disinfectants specifically looking at the COVID-19 virus in saliva.
This is not the end of our work as we continue to characterize this virus and integrate our findings into practical applications to mitigate exposure and transmission.
I would like to thank the president, thank the vice president for their ongoing support and leadership to the department and for their work in addressing this pandemic. I would also like to thank the scientists not only in S&T and the (INAUDIBLE) but to the larger scientific and R&D community. Thank you very much.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of if you are totally into that world which I find to be very interesting. So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light and I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you are going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body which you can do either through the skin or in some other way and I think you said you were going to test that too. It sounds interesting.
Right. And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute and is there a way we 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 (INAUDIBLE) interesting to check that so that you are going to have to use medical doctors with but it sounds interesting to me so we will see but the whole concept of the light the way it kills it in one minute that’s–that’s pretty powerful. Steve, please.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “I’m not a doctor. But I’m, like, a person that has a good you-know-what.”
He turned again to Dr Birx and asked if she had ever heard of using “the heat and the light” to treat coronavirus.
DR BIRX “Not as a treatment.” “I mean, certainly, fever is a good thing. When you have a fever, it helps your body respond. But I’ve not seen heat or light.”
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: “I think it’s a great thing to look at.”