The “orange man” as trump is called in the comment latched onto various utter speculations and tried to use them to absolve any responsibility to our poor preparation and response to the virus. And used it more to further a racist culture war than doing anything constructive. So yes, at a time when it was pure speculation used for a harmful agenda, the “orange man” was grossly irresponsible. And he acted like if it was true we could go back to normal and stop quarantining.

But sure, when lurching from speculation to speculation in a desperate attempt to shift blame and go back to normal, throwing random unfounded ideas like ingesting bleach, hydroxychloroquine, and lab leaks, then sometime the broken clock is right.

Edit: Policy needs to be data driven, not driven by complete speculation. Later it doesn’t matter what comes out if at the time the “theory” policies were based on were unfounded speculation. That is grossly negligent. Timing matters. And all of these matters are still speculation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/21/hydroxych...

Speaking of misinformation and speculation, I see you and others are still pushing the "ingesting bleach" blatant falsehood. You do yourself no favors.

Americans are literally drinking bleach https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2020/08/24/some...

Because trump did this: “At an April news conference, Trump wrongly suggested injecting disinfectant as a potential treatment, leading the makers of Lysol to release a statement saying "under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body”

My statement is supported. Please do not accuse me of “pushing blatant falsehoods” when even a cursory google provides concrete evidence that my claim is true.

That article that that Forbes post cited claims that two (!) people in Georgia drank Chlorine dioxide. There is also no evidence that Trump is the reason they drank it.

2 people out of over 300 million Americans drinking that does not show that this is a widespread phenomenon, like you seem to imply in your post -- "Americans are literally drinking bleach!"

Let's please make sure our comments are backed up by data, it ensures discussions here on HN are productive.

Also, the leading fact checkers, Politifact, refute your claim and state that "No, Trump didn’t tell Americans infected with the coronavirus to drink bleach". It is not very useful to be pushing debunked narratives on Hacker News...

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/11/joe-biden/...

Trump went on live tv and literally rambled about injecting disinfectants as a possible treatment for the virus. And “ramble” is not opinion, there is no better word for his statement on disinfectants, repeated below. I disagree with the politifact rating, based on what Trump said it should be “mostly true”. And the cdc even conduced a poll, apparently in response to trump’s press conference, that found 4% of respondents ingested or gargled bleach. https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2020-06-05/...

Biden named one of the specific types of disinfectant that trumps followers were literally drinking in response to his ramble about injecting disinfectants. The claim is mostly true.

Here trump’s quote below, HN readers can be the judge if it.

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in 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 on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me.”

That quote does not say to drink disinfectant... implying that it does is disingenuous at best. Even the far left PolitiFact admits that!

No it’s not disingenuous, in a pedantic reading of it he rambles about injecting it inside and cleaning right after similarly musing about bringing UV light inside the body.

The result is people drink (a typical way people bring things inside their body ) bleach (one of the most common household disinfectants).

Then a couple months later biden recounts it as trump telling people to drink bleach.

To my mind it sounds excessively pedantic to rate that as mostly false. The claim matches the direct outcome of trumps words, and was close to but not the exact terminology used. In my opinion it’s far too pedantic to call that mostly false rather than mostly true.

But okay were going to have different opinions on that matter, let’s compromise.

I think we can both agree it’s completely accurate to say that evidence suggests trump’s musings about disinfectants as a corona virus treatment on National tv led Americans to drink bleach.

————- And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that too. Sounds interesting," the president continued.

"And then 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?

"So it'd be interesting to check that."

Yeah, it’s interesting his misinformation doesn’t get flagged or deleted.

Makes you wonder about the bias of moderators on HN.

In reply to the other comment accusing me of “blatent falsehoods”, I already showed my claim was supported and that a quick google would show that. Your comment came about half and hour after I provided that support.

Please do not attack users and ignore their replies that already show that the attacks are unjustified.

Please don't use divisive language like saying I "attacked" you. It doesn't add anything to the discussion and is not discourse that is welcome on HN

Your comment said I was posting misinformation and speculated the only reason I wasn’t deleted or flagged was moderator bias. That is an attack and hostile, especially when I’d already followed up showing my comment was not misinformation.

It's interesting that people are willing to provide the "we shouldn't make conclusions without facts" argument for hydroxychloroquine, but insist that they were "right" about the lab leak way back in March 2020 when nobody knew anything.

Trump’s stance on a particular fact should have zero correlation on the reporting of that fact- that it does, is an indictment of a whole industry.

Please don’t do this here. I see you are new but its not a comment that adds anything to the discussion and is not discourse that is welcome on HN.

It does add to the discussion. The Orange Man raised many good points which people gaslighted the public about. Hydrocloriquine for one. Drs determined when used correctly it is one of the more effective agents.

As I say in my other comment, Policy needs to be data driven, not driven by complete speculation. Later it doesn’t matter what comes out if at the time the “theory” policies were based on were unfounded speculation. That is grossly negligent. Timing matters. And all of these matters are still speculation.

Based on the best data at the time, advocating hydroxychloroquine was grossly negligent, and while there still isn’t good studies that say different being data driven means using the best available data at the time to make decisions not being a time traveler and using future data. Here is a contemporary article on the drug https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/health/hydroxychloroquine...

And here are a few more on the topic: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/technology/hydroxychloroq...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/21/us/politics/trump-fact-ch...

None of those stories seem unfair reporting.

It's hydroxychloroquine, and it only looked good in poorly controlled studies, like the Henry Ford study where the hydroxychloroquine arm was also given steroids.

And answer me this: if hydroxychloroquine was so effective, why didn't Trump's tremendous doctors give it to him when he got covid?

What about my comment doesn’t add to the discussion?

I find it pretty thought provoking that mainstream news said the Wuhan Lab Theory was conclusively debunked as false, and now there has been a complete narrative shift.

Some, like the Washington Post, have actually gone back and retroactively edited their articles from that time period to hide this fact.

It’s very telling that my earlier comment was flagged.

You should probably phrase your comment in that tone, instead of being needlessly antagonistic.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped.” - 1984

For those unaware, the Washington Post has gone back and retroactively edited their articles from when Trump was president, where they claimed that the lab leak theory was “debunked”

Journalism is dead, and apparently pointing that out on Hacker News will get your comment deleted for “not adding to the discussion”

Oh wow. I was unaware of that.

"...Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right."