(Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump played down the COVID-19 pandemic again, comparing it to the flu in a tweet on Tuesday, and Twitter Inc responded by putting a warning label on the tweet, saying the post included potentially misleading information.
“Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu. Are we going to close down our Country? No, we have learned to live with it, just like we are learning to live with Covid, in most populations far less lethal!!!” Trump had tweeted. (https://bit.ly/34yYBaS)
Earlier in the day, Facebook Inc removed a similar post by Trump, according to CNN.
The tweet comes hours after Trump was discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
On Monday, Trump told Americans “to get out there” and not fear COVID-19 as he returned to the White House after a three-night hospital stay to be treated for the new coronavirus and removed his white surgical mask to pose for pictures.
During the 2019-2020 influenza season, the flu was associated with 22,000 deaths, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. (https://bit.ly/30ByG1m)
(Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru; Editing by Bernard Orr)
