OKEECHOBEE, FL. – Law Enforcement Today has
learned that last week in Florida, Okeechobee County Commissioner
Bryant Culpepper, who is not a physician but apparently plays one
on television,
told a public meeting that “blowing a hairdryer up your
nose” can cure the coronavirus. Really, he said that.
The important thing during a pandemic such as we are currently
facing is to make sure that you get your information from reliable
sources.
If you’re watching television, there are any number of medical
experts who have a fairly good idea how the COVID-19 virus can be
treated, including medical contributors on news stations.
More importantly, the Surgeon General of the United States, and
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director at the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases are probably the most reliable
sources. We would not suggest taking medical advice from
politicians.
At a public meeting, Culpepper was telling the meeting about
his background as a paramedic, and said that he had seen “one of
the foremost doctors who has studied the coronavirus” reveal a
cure on cable TV.
Culpepper said that according to a program he watched on One
America News Network, the doctor “explained that the nasal
passages and the nasal membranes are the coolest part of the body,
which is why the virus tends to go there unit it then becomes
healthy enough to go into the lungs.”
“This sound really goofy—and it did to me too—but
it works,” he told the meeting last Friday, which was captured on
video. “Once the temperature reaches 136 degrees Fahrenheit, the
virus falls apart.”
“I said, how would you get the temperature up to 136
degrees?”
“The
answer was to use a blow dryer. You hold a blow dryer up to
your face and you inhale with your nose, and it kills all the
viruses in your nose,” he said.
“So that sounds like a really simplified way of doing
things, sometimes the cures for some of these diseases are very
simple.”
After Culpepper made the statement, it was met by relative
silence at the meeting, and also at least one of the commissioners
covered his face with his hands.
After Culpepper’s statement, Tiffany Collins of the Okeechobee
County Health Department responded, saying:
“There is lots of misinformation out there.” She
then urged residents to rely on the advice of their own doctors and
not something they see online.
However, once the video went viral, including on his own
Facebook page, he got hammered. Examples of the comments received
included being called, “dangerously ignorant,” a “special
kind of stupid,” and even “dumb as a fucking rock” on his own
page.
“Misinformation is deadlier than the actual virus,”
said one critic, Tony Trotter on Facebook.
On Sunday, after probably realizing that he had made Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez appear intelligent in comparison, Culpepper
apologized on Facebook for the angry exchanges he had with
online critics as well as the “embarrassment” he caused his
fellow commissioners and staff, the New York Post reported.
“I will not offer any more suggestions unless they are tried
and proven,” he said, according to the Post. “I ask for all of
your forgiveness for anything offensive that I uttered during these
exchanges. God Bless and soften your hearts.”
The Associated Press assessed the claim that using a blow dryer
to shoot hot air into ones sinuses to kill the coronavirus is
false—and dangerous.
“False! Please don’t. Our nose carries bacteria, as part of
normal flora. Those bacteria may be confused,” Faheem Younus, who
specializes in infectious diseases at the University of Maryland
said in a tweet, knocking down the false claim, according to the
AP.
Dr. Jen Caudle, a family physician and associate professor at
Rowan University in New Jersey, told the AP that “depending on
how hot the blow dryer gets, I would be concerned with some adverse
effects.”
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The post
Florida commissioner destroyed online after suggesting a blow dryer
up your nose can fix COVID-19 appeared first on Law Enforcement
Today.
