Four senior administration officials and two sources close to the president each said on Friday that they had not previously heard Trump ever bring up disinfectant injections as something scientists should test as a coronavirus treatment. All were dumbfounded by what he said during the televised briefing. Several official Trump surrogates reached by The Daily Beast on Friday morning had zero appetite to defend the president’s remarks, and were simply waiting for this bit of inconvenient news to slip out of the cable-news cycle.

“I was just sitting there watching it [live] and thinking to myself, ‘I guess this is going to be the thing tomorrow,’” said one of the administration officials…

UV-C light, the shortest wavelength of ultraviolet light, is the most damaging kind of ultraviolet light which harms genetic material in organisms. Researchers have used it to clean N95 masks and hospital rooms and manufacturers use it in air filters to kill germs. It’s also why health experts strongly recommend that people don’t expose themselves to UV-C radiation. UV-C radiation is harmful to both skin and eyes and prolonged exposure increases the risk of skin cancer.

“I am not aware of any way to or evidence for safely shining ultraviolet light within a person to treat infections,” said Dr. Timothy Brewer, professor of epidemiology at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health and Medicine.