US President Donald Trump held his first campaign rally in Tulsa’s Bank of Oklahoma Centre on Saturday night, making an alarming call for health officials in the US to slow down testing for COVID-19.

The US currently has 2.3 million confirmed cases of the virus. 

“You know testing is a double-edged sword,” President Trump told a crowd of almost 19,000 supporters. Claiming the US has now tested some 25 million people, he added: “Here’s the bad part … when you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people; you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please.”

His statement almost immediately prompted White House officials to attempt to diffuse the President’s comments, calling it an intentional joke. 

White House trade advisor Peter Navarro said “Come on now, that was tongue in cheek. That was a light moment for him at a rally.”

Almost 120,000 people have died with Covid-19 in the US since the pandemic began, a number that health experts say could have been much higher had testing not been ramped up.