Trump Considers Halting Press Briefings After Disinfectant Gaffe

After global rebuff, Trump claimed he’d been speaking “sarcastically” and is considering halting his daily briefings

File image of US President Donald Trump.

(Photo: PTI)

US president Donald Trump is reportedly considering halting his daily press briefings, days after his infamous disinfectant gaffe that caused considerable panic and led to US health department having to issue clarifications to the public.

Donald Trump’s remarks that disinfectants could potentially treat coronavirus patients remaining in the news after four days of them being made was “bothering”, a key member of the White House Task Force on Coronavirus has said.

"I think it bothers me that this is still in the news cycle, because I think we're missing the bigger pieces of what we need to be doing, as American people, to continue to protect one another," Dr Deborah Brix, member of the White House Task Force on Coronavirus, told CNN in an interview, PTI reported.

He appeared to confirm media reports that he was considering halting the briefings, which dominate early-evening cable television news for sometimes more than two hours, out of frustration with questions about his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!” 

US President Donald Trump

Trump had on 24 April, stunned viewers by saying doctors might treat people infected with the coronavirus by shining ultraviolet light inside their bodies, or with injections of household disinfectant.

His comments had drawn immediate flak from health experts, while a leading disinfectant producer urged people not to listen to such dangerous speculation. Brix, a leading doctor specialising in HIV/AIDS immunology, said the dialogue should focus on asymptomatic cases and not on the President's remarks.

"Then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks (the virus) 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 on the lungs," he had said.

After global rebuff, Trump on Friday claimed he had been speaking “sarcastically.” But he limited that day’s briefing, which usually includes himself, Vice President Mike Pence and members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, to just 19 minutes, and did not take any questions from reporters. On Saturday, after 50 briefings over two months, the White House did not hold one at all.

"As a scientist and a public health official and a researcher, sometimes, I worry that we don't get the information to the American people that they need, when we continue to bring up something that was from Thursday night," Brix said.

She also added that she was ‘always concerned’ when questioned about a surge in new cases and deaths, after many states started moving towards re-opening their economies.

"I'm always concerned. And that's why we put out key, key gating criteria. And that gating criteria was not only looking at the epidemic. It was looking at the health care workers and making sure that the health care workers were protected. And it was also looking at capacity within the hospitals," she said

An AP-NORC poll published Thursday, the day Trump made the comments, showed that most Americans -- and a crushing majority of Democrats -- don't believe Trump when it comes to the health emergency facing the country.

(With inputs from PTI)