Trump makes spurious claims about coronavirus in phone call with Sean Hannity

New York CNN Business — A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. In a phoner with Hannity on Wednesday night, Trump reacted to the World Health Organization’s data-driven assessment of the global death rate for the novel coronavirus — 3.4% — by saying “I think the 3.4% is really a false number.” “Now, this is just my hunch,” Trump said, which should have spurred Hannity to interrupt, but he didn’t, so Trump continued, “based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it’s very mild – they’ll get better very rapidly, they don’t even see a doctor, they don’t even call a doctor – you never hear about those people, so you can’t put them down in the category of the overall population, in terms of this corona flu, and/or virus. So you just can’t do that.” Trump continued by discarding his own administration’s advice to stay home if you’re feeling sick: “If we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better, and then when you do have a death, like you’ve had in the state of Washington, like you had one in California, I believe you had one in New York.” No deaths have been reported in New York. I never knew that until six or eight weeks ago,” Trump told Hannity… >> Also on Wednesday: “Trump falsely claimed that Obama administration slowed down diagnostic testing, experts say…” >> Big picture from the NYT: “He has dealt with the coronavirus, the first external crisis of his administration, by repeating a string of falsehoods rather than delivering reassurance…” “Coronavirus tests Trump’s credibility gap” That’s the headline on John Harwood’s latest for CNN. NiemanLab’s Hanaa’ Tameez calls them “pop-up news products.” CNN’s new podcast comes from Dr. Sanjay Gupta… Special reports on cable and broadcast Gupta and Anderson Cooper will host a CNN global town hall, “Coronavirus – Facts and Fears,” Thursday at 10pm ET… Brian Lowry writes: Representing the kind of service journalism I frankly wish the broadcast networks would do more of, ABC’s “20/20” will seek to separate fact from fiction regarding coronavirus with “Outbreak: What You Need to Know,” a two-hour live special on Friday… Looking for Secretary Azar?