Donald Trump has said he ordered officials to slow down coronavirus testing rates in the US to avoid the appearance of alarming numbers of cases as the virus spread through the country.
The US president told supporters at a campaign rally that testing was a "double-edged sword" because it revealed the extent of the virus.
He added: “Here’s the bad part. When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.”
The president also used racist language to describe the virus, calling it "kung flu".
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign later told Reuters that the president was "joking" about tests.
The US has now conducted nearly 27 million coronavirus tests, according to the Centre for Disease Control, although people are sometimes tested more than once.
Almost 120,000 people have died with coronavirus in the US according to Johns Hopkins University - more than double Brazil, the second-worst affected country, although deaths are counted differently in various countries.
The World Health Organisation and other experts have said for several months that testing for the virus and tracing its spread is the best way to control it and keep people safe.
Mr Trump was speaking at his first campaign rally since coronavirus lockdown in Tulsa, Oklahoma, despite rising infections in the city.
People at the rally had to sign a waiver saying that the Trump campaign did not bear responsibility if they got sick at the event. Six campaign staffers tested positive for coronavirus hours before the event started.
Tulsa's mayor GT Bynum said in a Facebook post that there were mixed opinions about holding the rally in the city while infections were still rising.
He said: "We do this as our positive Covid-19 cases are rising, but while our hospital capacity remains strong. Some think it is great, some think it is reckless. Regardless of where each of us falls on that spectrum, we will go through it as a community."
The rally attracted fewer supporters than expected, with several rows of empty seats visible in the 19,000-capacity arena. A Republican official said that one million people had asked for tickets a few days before the event.
