CNN's Sanjay Gupta demolishes Trump's latest attempts to diminish coronavirus

On CNN Tuesday, medical analyst Sanjay Gupta broke down President Donald Trump's latest false talking points minimizing the severity of coronavirus, as he attempts to build public support for ending shutdowns and other measures negatively impacting the U.S. economy.

"There's this false comparison that people keep making, President Trump among the people who keep making them, comparing the coronavirus either to the flu or to car accidents," said anchor Jake Tapper. "Take a listen to what he said today."

"We never turned the country off," said Trump in the clip. "We lose much more than that to automobile accidents. We didn't call up the automobile companies to say stop making cars, we don't want any cars anymore. We have to get back to work."

"Now, I would observe that what the U.S. government has done with automobiles is forced them to put in seat belts, forced them to put in airbags, impose speed limits, put cops on the road. There are lots of steps," said Tapper. "But let's start with the flu comparison. He said we don't shut down because of the flu. [Dr. Anthony] Fauci has already said both of these are false comparisons. What do you think?"

"Look, this is one of the first conversations I had with President Trump about this whole topic, was to remind people that this was more lethal than the influenza," said Gupta. "The flu is a big deal. People don't pay attention to it, they should, it's a fair point. There's been 20-some thousand deaths this year. This is 10 to 20 times more lethal, Jake, 10 to 20 times. There's no vaccine for this. There's no buffer against this. This is a novel virus, our body's immune system has never seen this. They're both pathogens, they're both viruses, but they share very little in common besides that."

Watch below: