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Trump says improbable cures he suggested were ‘sarcastic’
Noon
President Donald Trump has walked back suggestions that disinfectant or sunshine could be injected into people to cure COVID-19, which has killed more than 50,000 people in the United States.
At a briefing on Thursday, the president appeared to suggest that “medical doctors” should test whether disinfectants or powerful lights introduced “through the skin or in some other way” could be effective against the coronavirus.
In the Oval Office Friday, he told reporters he was joking when he suggested these improbable cures, The Hill reported. “I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen,” Trump said.
.@jeffmason1: "Just to clarify: You’re not encouraging Americans to inject disinfectant?"
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 24, 2020
President Trump: "No. Of course not…It was said sarcastically. It was put in the form of a question to a group of extraordinary hostile people. Namely, the fake news media." pic.twitter.com/pmwr1YqPzg
Continuing, Trump repeated his contention that disinfectants, light, heat and humidity are effective against the virus on surfaces — such as skin — and therefore might be useful as treatments. “So I said, ‘How do we do it inside the body or even outside the body with the hands?’”
Later, he clarified that he did not mean to imply internal use.
Lysol, a manufacturer of disinfecting products, issued a statement Friday telling consumers “we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).”
More than 870,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the U.S., according to a Johns Hopkins tally.
Rebel golfers trespass and putt their way through the pandemic
10:45 a.m.
Kathy Willens, Associated Press
Safe-at-home regulations have shut down countless nonessential businesses across the country, to include about half the nation’s golf courses, but for some rebellious golfers it’s never been easier to get a tee time, The New York Times reported.
Police have removed — and in some cases fined — golfers who were breaking safe-at-home orders and trespassing on closed courses in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York. In Florida, where golf is still allowed by the state but banned by some local governments, golfers have begun harassing a mayor to open the fairways.
“There is also a small contingent that has called or texted my parents and said, ‘Tell your son to open the golf courses,’” Palm County mayor Dave Kerner told The New York Times. The newspaper removed expletives from the demand.
“I understand the anger. I am a 36-year-old mayor that no one has ever heard of and I was the one to close golf in the golf capital of the universe,” Kerner said.
Some golfers insist that social distancing can be kept on the course and that it is a form of outdoor exercise — like bicycling or running — which is generally allowed.
“My wife’s not thrilled that I’m out here,” a 74-year-old Florida golfer told The New York Times. “She’s much more cautious than I am.”