Gupta, CNN chief medical correspondent, told Trump at a press conference, "Mr. President, you talked about the flu and then in comparison to the coronavirus. The flu has a fatality ratio of about 0.1%." Trump said, "Correct." But Trump later disputed the figure, saying, "And the flu is higher than that. The flu is much higher than that." -- February 26 coronavirus press conferenceFacts First: Even if Trump meant that the flu has a "much higher" fatality rate than 0.1% -- rather than meaning that the flu's mortality rate is "much higher" than that of the novel coronavirus -- he was wrong. The mortality rate for seasonal flu is "about 0.1%, 0.2% at the most," Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health -- who appeared with Trump at this same news conference -- told this to USA Today in mid-February, echoing the comments of other experts and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data since 2010.