President Donald Trump on Wednesday said the US is on a "wartime footing" as it fights the coronavirus pandemic, and declared himself a "wartime president."

This came as Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to help with the production of crucial medical equipment.

Trump in recent days has taken a more serious tone on COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, after downplaying the threat for weeks.

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared himself a "wartime president" as the US faces off with the coronavirus pandemic.

At a White House press conference, Trump said he views the fight against coronavirus as a war and that the US is on "a wartime footing."

"I view it — in a sense as a wartime president," Trump said of his role at present, which came after he invoked the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law that allows the US government to put pressure on the private sector to produce desperately needed medical equipment.

"I mean, that's what we're fighting. I mean, it's a very tough situation here," Trump went on to say. "You have to do things. You have to close parts of an economy that six weeks ago were the best they've ever been. We had the best economy we've ever had. And then one day you have to close it down in order to defeat this enemy, and, but we're doing it and we're doing it well."

Trump has taken a far more serious tone on COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, since declaring a national emergency over the virus last Friday.

Prior to that, Trump downplayed the threat for weeks, at one point suggesting it was a Democratic "hoax" to damage him politically.

Trump on February 26 likened the virus to the flu, despite the fact public health experts warned against such comparisons because the mortality rate from coronavirus is much higher.

That same day, Trump said that the US had 15 cases of coronavirus (it was actually closer to 60 at the time) and claimed that would be "close to zero" in a couple of days. "When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done," Trump said at the time.

He continued to downplay the threat well into March, contradicting warnings from his own officials and top public health experts. Trump, for example, on March 9 tweeted: "So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!"

Fast-forward to March 18, and coronavirus has spread to all 50 states, over 100 people have died from the virus and more than 7,500 have been infected. Globally, 207,000 people have been infected and 8,200 have died.

Trump has sought to rewrite the history of his early response to coronavirus in recent days, falsely claiming in a Wednesday morning tweet that he "always" treated the virus "very seriously."