Trump’s hiatus from COVID-19 briefings didn’t last long – By Todd J. Gillman (Dallas Morning News) / April 27 2020
Slammed for airing risky ideas from hydroxychloroquine to injections of disinfectant, the president took the weekend off and scrapped Monday’s briefing, but reversed course with a Rose Garden press conference.
WASHINGTON – Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
That’s what President Donald Trump was saying last Thursday at the last White House briefing at which he took questions.
Except that he wasn’t referring to transparency in government, the typical context for the axiom, but to the dubious concept of spraying ultraviolet light inside the lungs of COVID-19 patients or, even more dangerous, injecting actual disinfectant – since both UV and heavy duty Lysol kill the virus on the surfaces of inanimate objects.
Medical experts – and disinfectant-makers – were horrified.
And guess what, Trump ignored questions at the next night’s briefing, and walked off after just 20 minutes.
Was that because he’d finally heeded the advice pouring in from friends and aides that big ratings for these briefings mean little if the misinformation he sometimes peddled cost more credibility than the benefit of all that exposure?
Continue to article: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2020/04/27/trumps-hiatus-from-covid-19-briefings-didnt-last-long/
