Donald Trump Stirs Social Media With Tweet About Hydroxychloroquine

President Donald Trump isn't giving up on hydroxychloroquine, his once-boasted treatment for the coronavirus. Just after news broke that the Trump administration had granted emergency authorization for coronavirus plasma treatments, the president raised eyebrows when he shared a video of a Yale professor expressing his support of the anti-malaria drug, despite reports that hydroxychloroquine is ineffective.

Please watch highly respected Dr. Harvey Risch of Yale, on Hydroxychloroquine. pic.twitter.com/WxaeZIp74l

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2020

After Life, Liberty & Levin host Mark Levin cited multiple people, including virologist Steven Hatfill, lauding the benefits of the drug despite the backlash it has received, Dr. Harvey Risch said that "the evidence is overwhelming" in support of the drug's usage in COVID-19 patients. Risch claimed that hydroxychloroquine has a "very substantial benefit in reducing risk of hospitalization or mortality." He went on to claim that there has been "a massive disinformation campaign" against the drug. He said that this campaign "stretches from the government to the media" and is "suppressing this message or its countering it with a false message." Risch added that the science supporting this drug in treating high-risk patients is "stronger than anything else I've ever studied."

Throughout the early months of the pandemic, the president had touted hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment for the virus, and had even revealed that he was taking it as a precaution. The World Health organization, however, had warned against the drug's side effects, and the FDA in June announced that it was ending emergency use authorization of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat hospitalized COVID-19 patients, citing their "potential benefits for such use do not outweigh its known and potential risks."

The president's Sunday night tweet took many social media users by surprise and sparked a strong response on the social media platform. Scroll down to see how people are reacting to Trump's tweet.