On Friday morning, Arlington County’s Public Safety and Emergency Management Office tweeted out a warning that, without context, would seem somewhat obvious: “Reminder…Household cleaning products including bleach should never be ingested.”

But the tweet had a very specific purpose, namely to tamp down misguided theories proposed by President Donald Trump during a White House press briefing on Thursday night regarding ingesting disinfectants as a means to kill the coronavirus.

“I see the disinfectant, where it 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,” he claimed.

The comments quickly prompted a wave of medical professionals to dispel the proposal. Doctors warned that disinfectants like bleach are toxic and can be fatal when ingested. And Lysol, a popular maker of a sought-after line of cleaning and disinfectant products, released a statement shortly after saying that “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body.”

Maryland’s Emergency Management Agency tweeted shortly after noon Friday that it had received “several” calls regarding questions about using disinfectants to counter COVID-19, writing “This is a reminder that under no circumstances should any disinfectant product be administered into the body through injection, ingestion or any other route.” Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s spokesman, Mike Ricci, added that the agency decided to post the alert “after receiving more than 100 calls” to its hotline.

The federal government’s own Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is based in Bethesda, similarly took to social media with its quarantine mascot Quinn the fox—yes, really—to note, “Cleaning products are poisonous, America! Make sure you keep those cleaning products in their original bottles and locked up out of sight and out of reach of kids!”

https://twitter.com/USCPSC/status/1253682067424059393

Fairfax County Fire and Rescue doubled down, adding, “Poison control centers in U.S. received 45,550 calls about exposure to cleaners and disinfectants. A 20.4% increase from the same period last year.”

And that wasn’t it. Trump also mused on the potential of using very bright light to kill the virus.

“So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous—whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light—and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body,” he said.

Dr. Deborah Birx, a top advisor to Trump on the pandemic, openly disagreed, saying light would not be used as a treatment for the virus.

And locally, Trump’s suggestion also drew mockery from D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who tweeted out a picture of himself shining a flashlight down his throat.

https://twitter.com/ChmnMendelson/status/1253474105254428673

In a statement on Friday morning, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump’s statements had been “taken out of context.”

“President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterday’s briefing,” she said in a statement to conservative outlet, the Daily Caller.

Trump himself said on Friday that his comments were meant to be sarcastic. He told pool reporters that “I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen.”

This story originally appeared on WAMU.