“I can’t believe I have to say this but please don’t drink bleach” tweeted Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate, Friday afternoon. Oddly enough, he is not alone in his pleas to the American public to stay away from ingesting or injecting disinfectants in hopes of killing the virus. The original craze around using disinfectants as a form of protection against the coronavirus is rooted in an offhand comment that President Trump made in a conference on Thursday. The president was pointing out the efficiency that disinfectants seem to have in killing the virus and speculated “is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”.

Taking this quote in context, much of the backlash seems to be caused by a distortion by the media. Even if Trump did not mean to encourage this deadly practice, critics have pointed out that now, more than ever, Trump needs to be cautious of what he says. We are in a tumultuous time and bad ideas may seem good, but at the end of the day, please don’t drink bleach.