U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a briefing at the National Institutes of Health Vaccine Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland, U.S., on Tuesday, March 3, 2020.

President Donald Trump sought to play down the plunging price of oil and the global spread of the new coronavirus as markets tanked Monday, saying that lower gas prices were good for consumers and comparing COVID-19 to the common flu.

"Good for the consumer, gasoline prices coming down!" Trump wrote in one of a series of posts on Twitter. In another, he wrote that the flu killed 37,000 Americans last year, compared with 22 known deaths from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

The market slid Monday amid an all-out oil price war and fears over the economic pain to come from the coronavirus. The sell-off triggered market "circuit breakers" shortly after trading opened, after the major indexes fell by 7% in less than 15 minutes.

Oil prices were down more than 20% after Saudi Arabia announced major price cuts and production increases. The Saudi move came after Russia rejected a proposal by OPEC to cut 1.5 million barrels of production per day.

Trump said the collapse was caused by Saudi Arabia and Russia "arguing over the price and flow of oil."

"That, and the Fake News, is the reason for the market drop!" Trump tweeted. "Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on," he said.

The president's downplaying of the coronavirus comes even as other parts of his administration signaled that containing the disease was his top priority.

"The American people should know President Trump is leading a whole of government approach," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told Fox Business on Monday. "It is the number one priority of this administration."