Trump touts chloroquine — again 

For the fourth day in a row, President Trump spent much of his daily coronavirus press briefing touting the antimalarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as coronavirus medications. Despite anecdotal evidence, there’s still no clinical trial data showing they’re effective — and Tony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease researcher, was absent from the White House briefing room for the second day in a row, and therefore unable to fact-check the president in real time. 

While Trump hasn’t recommended that patients self-administer chloroquine formulations, his nod to the drugs on Monday came just hours after an Arizona health system reported what could be the country’s first chloroquine poisoning death during the pandemic, a man in his 60s. The victim’s wife was also listed in critical condition. Nigerian health officials had also recently reported cases of poisoning from chloroquine self-medication after Trump and the controversial entrepreneur Elon Musk advocated for its use. 

Deborah Birx, the Trump administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, also teased a forthcoming FDA approval for “self-swab” coronavirus test kits, despite a recent FDA warning that no such tests had been approved. A handful of startups that have developed take-home tests, however, have insisted they’re on solid regulatory footing anyway, and it’s unclear what Birx’s announcement means.