People are drinking, inhaling a lot more disinfectant in COVID-19 pandemic, data show

Data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers show there has been a substantial increase in accidental poisonings since the coronavirus pandemic began.

April had a more than 200% increase in disinfectant exposures from the same month the previous year, according to the National Poison Data system bulletin. On April 23, President Donald Trump asked during a White House news conference about using disinfectant as a way to fight the virus.

“Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?” he asked, McClatchy News previously reported. “Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs.”

The day after the briefing, Trump claimed his comments were “sarcastic,” according to The Hill. His press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said the comments were taken “out of context,” The Hill reported.

There have been 11,357 disinfectant exposure cases reported to the country’s poison control centers this year as of May 10, which is an increase of 62% from last year. More than 3,000 of the cases involve children ages 0-5 and around 2,500 are among adults ages 20-39, according to the poison control center.

By being exposed to a toxic chemical, it means the person had contact with it through ingestion, inhalation or absorbing it on their skin or eyes, the poison control center said.

The poison control center also reported a large increase in the number of bleach cases this year. There have been 18,788 bleach exposure cases this year — an increase of 38% from last year, data shows. The 0-5 and 20-39 age ranges both have between 4,500 and 5,000 such cases this year.

While there have been 11,073 cases of hand sanitizer exposure this year, more than 7,000 of them involve children 5 years old or younger. There were 42% more hand sanitizer cases in March 2020 than the same month of 2019 and 35% more in April 2020 than April 2019, poison control data shows.

Data from the poison control centers indicate there remains large increases of poison cases in the first 10 days of May.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the largest increase in poison cases involve inhalation, but there are still more cases of ingestion overall.

You can reach your local poison control center by calling the Poison Help hotline at 1-800-222-1222.

This story was originally published May 12, 2020 at 10:08 AM with the headline "People are drinking, inhaling a lot more disinfectant in COVID-19 pandemic, data show."