How Does the Coronavirus Compare to the Flu?

Is this new coronavirus really a serious danger? Doesn’t the flu kill more people? As the United States recorded its first coronavirus death Saturday — and as other cases popped up in people without known risks on the West Coast — Americans wondered how to measure this new threat against a more familiar foe: influenza. President Donald Trump, a self-described germaphobe, said Wednesday he was amazed to learn that tens of thousands of Americans died from the flu each year, contrasting that number with the 60 or so known to be infected with the coronavirus. On Friday, Trump accused the news media and Democrats of exaggerating the dangers of the virus. “The flu kills people,” Mick Mulvaney, the...