Could the United States face two epidemics at the same time next fall, flu and the coronavirus?

That frightening idea was raised by Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during an interview on Tuesday with The Washington Post. He suggested that a new surge in coronavirus cases could coincide with the next flu season, causing an even more difficult crisis than the one the nation is facing now.

“We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time,” he said.

At Wednesday’s White House briefing, President Trump said that Dr. Redfield had been misquoted and would clarify his remarks. But Dr. Redfield then said that The Post had quoted him correctly. But he tried to dial back the alarm his comments had provoked.

“I think it’s really important to emphasize what I didn’t say,” Dr. Redfield said at the briefing. “I didn’t say this was going to be worse, I said it was going to be more difficult and potentially complicated.”

He reiterated several times that if the situation became more difficult, that did not mean it became worse.