WH’s Grisham on Coronavirus: ‘We’re Telling People to Act as If This Is a Severe Flu Season’

Monday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” White House communications director Stephanie Grisham reassured viewers President Donald Trump was up to speed on the latest developments of the coronavirus and argued this best approach was to treat the threat as a “severe flu season.”

“The task force is meeting every single day, and they have been giving daily briefings,” she said to Fox News Channel’s Steve Doocy. “The president is briefed every day, of course. Right now, we’re just — we’re telling people to act as if this is a severe flu season and, you know, wash your hands often. And if you are elderly or if you have any ailments — you know, underlying health issues — maybe don’t go to areas where there’s big crowds. If you do start to feel sick, stay home — don’t go to work. Stay out of that. Right now, those are the warnings that we’re giving people, and then we’ll go from there. We’ll see what happens as this continues.”

Grisham called on the media and other politicians to stop using the threat against Trump politically.

“I’ve said this before, and the president’s said this before as well,” Grisham added. “I just want to stress to politicians and the media to stop using this as a tool to politicize things and to scare people. It’s not responsible. This is not the time for this. People need to be looking to the CDC for guidance. People need to be, again, washing their hands, treating this like a flu, making responsible choices. This is absolutely not the time to be trying to scare people to gain political points or to get headlines.”

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