WASHINGTON — In a comparison that is disputed by public health experts, President Donald Trump on Tuesday likened the coronavirus to the seasonal flu and said we can learn to live with Covid-19.

“Flu season is coming up! Many people every year, sometimes over 100,000, and despite the Vaccine, die from the Flu,” tweeted Trump, who has Covid-19 and returned to the White House on Monday after three days in Walter Reed hospital for treatment. “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!!!”

The number of deaths from the flu cited by Trump is misleading and in recent years has been far fewer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 22,000 people in the U.S. died from the flu during the last flu season from