On Saturday, Fox News put on Mark Jorgensen, one of the coronavirus patients quarantined on the cruise ship Diamond Princess, to tell everyone the disease isn’t really that “scary” — because he and his wife don’t have any symptoms.

“I’m not one to advise the experts on this, but I personally believe that it’s not the scary thing that everyone thinks it is,” said Jorgensen. “I’m not symptomatic, my wife tested positive without symptoms, and now is clear of it. And so I would say, you know, maybe we can step back and breathe a little bit and not freak out about all this.”

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While not “freaking out” is generally good advice in the face of a crisis, downplaying the seriousness of a disease that is at least 20 times more lethal than the flu and aggressively contagious might not be the ideal message. But some are even going further, with President Donald Trump telling the crowd at a rally in South Carolina that coronavirus is the “new hoax” created by Democrats to hurt his presidency.

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