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Fox News reported on one hand that public health agencies (in Los Angeles and Maryland) were "inundated" with calls about "drinking bleach" after Trump discussed disinfectants in re Covid-19, but a few seconds later they cast doubt on those reports of many inquiries with "who knows?"

So, was there as significant number of such calls/inquiries? And were the calls literally about drinking bleach as Fox News seem to imply, somewhat obviously suggesting that [mainly/only?] people in Democratic strongholds like MD or LA would seriously consider drinking bleach?

Nate Eldredge
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Fizz
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    To be clear, the claim is the authorities received calls *inquiring* about "it" - not that people have actually been drinking bleach. And people making such inquiries does not imply that they were seriously considering doing it - the inquiries could have been of the form "this is a terrible idea, right?" – Nate Eldredge Apr 25 '20 at 03:43
  • @NateEldredge: yeah, there was no suggestion that they actually drank it. If you think you can edit the title to make that more clear, go ahead. – Fizz Apr 25 '20 at 03:44
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    For what it's worth, the LA County Department of Public Health doesn't seem to have any such announcement, neither in their [press releases](http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/phcommon/public/media/mediapubdisplay.cfm?unit=media&ou=ph&prog=media) nor their [Twitter feed](https://twitter.com/lapublichealth?s=20). – Nate Eldredge Apr 25 '20 at 03:46
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    [Here](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/top-la-health-official-calls-trumps-disinfectant-comments-extraordinarily-dangerous-1291800) is a report that the LA County Health Director, Dr. Barbara Ferrer, mentioned the issue in a press briefing today (April 24, 2020), describing it as "misinformation that has been circulating". It might be helpful to look for a transcript or video of her complete remarks, in case she said something else closer to the claim, but I couldn't find one. – Nate Eldredge Apr 25 '20 at 03:54
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    Ah, I think [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26CVFiOopjg) is her briefing. She comes on at 4:40, the woman with the gray jacket and white hair. It's late here so I can't watch all of it right now, but maybe someone else would like to skim it? – Nate Eldredge Apr 25 '20 at 03:59
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    At [29:40 to 30:30](https://youtu.be/26CVFiOopjg?t=1782) a reporter asks, in reference to injecting disinfectants: "Has the county received any inquiries and questions about this, and what is your message to residents?" Ferrer responds with a general warning not to inject, ingest, etc, but does not say whether they have actually received any inquiries. This may possibly have been misinterpreted and led to the claim? – Nate Eldredge Apr 25 '20 at 04:11
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    https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/25/845015236/nyc-poison-control-sees-uptick-in-calls-after-trumps-disinfectant-comments?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews – Daniel R Hicks Apr 27 '20 at 02:55
  • Related: [1](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/119/); [2](https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2613/). – Nat Apr 27 '20 at 18:18

1 Answers1

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Maryland

Yes, officials said that they received such calls.

The Maryland Emergency Management Agency tweeted from their verified account on April 24:

We have received several calls regarding questions about disinfectant use and #COVID19.

This is a reminder that under no circumstances should any disinfectant product be administered into the body through injection, ingestion or any other route.

There was a followup tweet from Mike Ricci, Director of Communications for the Maryland governor's office:

We decided to take the step of posting this alert after receiving more than 100 calls to our hotline.

Note that they didn't give any more specifics as to what the callers actually said, or whether any of them seemed to be seriously considering disinfectant misuse.

Los Angeles

I haven't found any evidence confirming or refuting the claim that Los Angeles officials received such inquiries.

The closest thing I found was an April 24 press conference with Dr. Barbara Ferrer, the Los Angeles County Health Director. At around 29:40 to 30:30, reporter Anabel Munoz of ABC 7 asked, in reference to the President's comments about disinfectant use:

Has the county received any inquiries and questions about this, and what is your message to residents?

Ferrer responded with a general warning not to inject or ingest disinfectants, and some other cautions about the proper use of disinfectants for cleaning. But she didn't answer the first part of the question as to whether the county had received any inquiries.

Nate Eldredge
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