6 times Trump contradicted public officials about the coronavirus pandemic

• President Trump has misled the public on the seriousness of the coronavirus, the number of testing kits, the virus's death rate, and the timeline of a possible vaccine.
• For months, he expressed minimal concerns when asked about COVID-19, saying "it's going to disappear like a miracle," even after it arrived in the United States.
• Public health officials, including those in his own administration, often contradicted the president's statements.
• Here are six notable examples of public officials contradicting Trump's statements on the coronavirus pandemic.
• View more episodes of Business Insider Today on Facebook

President Donald Trump's response to the unfolding coronavirus pandemic has included a mix of wishful thinking and misinformation.

And numerous times over the past month, the president has publicly contradicted the messaging from public officials and members of his own coronavirus task force.

Here are just a handful of topics where Trump has added to the confusion recently rather than cleared it up.

How serious is the coronavirus?

On January 22, after the first case of coronavirus had been detected in the US, Trump said that "we have it totally under control. It's one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It's going to be just fine."

Eight days later, on January 30, he was still downplaying the crisis, saying "We have very little problem in this country at this moment."

But that very same day, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a public health emergency.

How long will the pandemic last?

At a February 10 press conference, Trump suggested that the coronavirus might simply die out as the weather gets warmer.

"Now the virus that we're talking about, a lot of people think that goes away in April, with the heat," he told reporters.

That theory was quickly batted down by Robert Redfield, director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

"It looks like this virus is probably with us beyond this season and beyond this year," he said.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via GettyPresident Donald Trump looks on as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health Anthony Fauci speaks during a news conference on the COVID-19 outbreak at the White House on February 26, 2020.

Is this serious?

For weeks, Trump did not seem to take the coronavirus outbreak seriously, and on several occasions accused Democratic lawmakers of exaggerating the outbreak to damage Trump politically.

"The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. This is their new hoax," Trump said at a February 28 rally.

But public health officials, such as Anthony Fauci of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, have painted a different picture about the gravity of the situation.

Just one day before Trump's rally, Fauci said "we're dealing with a serious virus that we're taking very seriously."

When will the vaccine be available?

The president has at times exaggerated the timeline for a coronavirus vaccine.

On February 29, Trump said a vaccine would be available "very quickly" and "very rapidly."

We're talking about a vaccine … developing very rapidly a vaccine for the virus," he said at a press conference.

But on March 2, Fauci said a vaccine wouldn't be available until much longer.

"You're asking when is it going to be deployable is at the earliest a year to a year and a half, no matter how fast you go," he said.

Is it just like the flu?

And another subject Trump has misstated is the seriousness of COVID-19, the disease caused the coronavirus.

At a March 2 press conference, Trump said that the coronavirus would be less deadly than the flu.

"On average, you lose from 26,000 to 70,000 or so, and even some cases more, from the flu. We lose - we have deaths of that per year," Trump said. "And here, we're talking about a much smaller range."

In reality, the coronavirus is much deadlier than the flu. Here's what Fauci said just two days after Trump's comments.

"The mortality of this is multiple times what seasonal flu is," he said. "The flu has a mortality rate of 0.1% - this has a mortality of 10 times that."

Does the US have enough tests?

One contributing factor to the outbreak of the coronavirus in the US is the lack of testing available.

Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged as much on March 5, saying "We don't have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward."

But just two days later, Trump falsely stated that "Anybody that needs a test gets a test - they're there," adding that they have the tests. And the tests are beautiful."