Facebook removed President Donald Trump’s Tuesday post claiming the coronavirus isn’t as deadly as the flu “in most populations.”
The social media giant reportedly deleted the president’s words after deciding the post violated its COVID-19 misinformation policy, according to CNN. A Facebook spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation, “We remove incorrect information about the severity of COVID-19, and have now removed this post.”
“Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu,” Trump wrote in the now-deleted post.
“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!!!”
Flu deaths have not surpassed 100,000 in any year dating back to 2010 contrary to Trump’s claims, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. The highest annual flu death estimate recorded by the CDC was approximately 61,000 between 2017 and 2018, the data showed.
Trump knew this wasn’t true in February when he told Bob Woodward it’s worse than any flu.
And he knows it’s not true now.
210,00 are dead and Trump himself was sent to Walter Reed. Most Americans are not so lucky to receive that level of care.
Trump’s incompetence is deadly. pic.twitter.com/HW3U1hJgAc
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) October 6, 2020
Approximately 1,045,000 people have died from COVID-19 globally so far this year with an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 people who’ve died from complications involving the flu, according to Johns Hopkins University figures. Around 210,000 of the total COVID-19 deaths are in America, the Hopkins data showed.
The approximated global mortality rate for the flu, which fluctuates annually, is around .1%, whereas, the coronavirus currently has a global death rate of 1%, according to The Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. (RELATED: Twitter Will Remove Tweets That Wish Trump Dead Following COVID Diagnosis)
Trump posted the same message to Twitter, which has not been removed but was labeled as “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information.”
“This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about spreading misleading and possibly potentially harmful information related to COVID-19,” Twitter’s flag on the post read.
“However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”
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