During his press briefing tonight, Donald Trump made some new claims about how to treat coronavirus.

After a study suggested that his favoured method – hydroxychloroquine, a malaria medication – is not only not demonstrably effective in treating Covid-19 but could actually be harmful and cause more deaths, Trump has now pivotted to a new idea: disinfectant.

Speaking tonight, he mentioned the potential use of ultraviolet lights to kill the virus. He then appeared to suggest that he – with all the medical training of an average to poor businessperson – came up with the brilliant suggestion: "Supposing we could bring the light inside the body, either through the skin or, err, in some other way. And I think you're going to test that too?"

So far, so bizarrre, but... it gets worse, when he starts talking about "disinfectants":

And then I see the disinfectant! Which 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. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number. So it would be interesting to check that.

This appeared to be an off-the-cuff statement said while looking towards Dr Deborah Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, who remained understandably stoney-faced.

Needless to say, we have yet to hear any doctor, medical official or scientist suggest that injecting disinfectants into humans is in any way something that could be done.

People had a lot of thoughts, mostly along the "completely insane" lines.

Some suggested that if this was the plan, perhaps the "testing" Trump is calling for could start with himself?

We're not sure who needs to hear this but just in case:

Do not inject or injest any kind of disenfectant in any way – anything you have under your kitchen sink is likely to be highly toxic and absolutely not intended for human consumption of any kind.