President Trump Says that Bleach Could Cure COVID-19

Jenna Daudpota Arts & Entertainment Editor, The Pawprint

On April 23, 2020, US President Donald Trump suggested possible cures for the COVID-19. COVID-19 has caused approximately 250,000 deaths at the time of writing this article. The United States of America has both the highest reported cases (over a million) and the highest death count (around 70,000) in the world. This means that the US has approximately a third of the world’s confirmed case and over a fourth of global deaths.

So, when talking about cures that the US government could or would be working on, President Trump said, “I see the disinfectant that 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?” From this statement, a tremendous response arose. 

Health officials were quick to correct that injecting any type of disinfectant into your system would not only be unhelpful to the immune system’s fight against COVID-19 but ultimately harmful, and disinfectant companies themselves specified that the disinfectant is for outside the body and not the inside.

However, this wasn’t enough to stop people from testing President Trump’s theories. In Michigan and Maryland, emergency calls regarding disinfectants have spiked since President Trump’s statement and the governors blame him. Yet, President Trump refused to take responsibility, saying that he “can’t imagine why” the spike happened. He said that it was all just a joke that he “was asking a question sarcastically to reporters…just to see what would happen.” 

This is not the only statement the President made during this pandemic against health officials’ advice, like telling state governments to consider opening schools back up before the end of the school year. With presidential elections coming up soon, his choices regarding the pandemic become more and more controversial and harmful to the American people, so it then becomes a question of how hard this will tank his reelection chances.

Most recently, President Trump has suggested re-starting the US economy by the end of May or the middle of June, despite dire warnings from his health officials. The task force for dealing with the Covid-19 crisis is also to be disbanded and replaced with another group focused on opening the economy.