Trump says he ordered officials to slow coronavirus testing.

Amid surging coronavirus infections nationwide, President Donald Trump said at his campaign rally in Tulsa Saturday night that he told officials to administer fewer coronavirus tests to keep case numbers down.

The comments drew a chorus of criticism from congressional Democrats, who said it validated fears that the president was more focused on saving face amid the pandemic than on protecting public health. A White House official told The Washington Post that Trump was joking, a common defense from Trump’s aides when he says something controversial.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., condemned Trump for referring to COVID-19 as “kung flu” during his rally in Tulsa, writing on Twitter that the president made a “racist joke” in response to a pandemic that has killed more than 121,000 people in the United States.

Eight states on Saturday reported their highest single-day case counts since the pandemic began, and daily new infections nationwide exceeded 30,000 on both Friday and Saturday. The country has not seen daily totals that high in more than seven weeks.

One of the country’s leading public health experts said Sunday that he was worried that Trump’s rally in Tulsa could become a “super-spreader” event resulting in many people being infected with the coronavirus.

“We have seen in the past few months around the world that indoor gatherings have been the source of most super-spreading events,” Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University, told Fox News, responding to a question about possible contagion at the rally. “There’s an opportunity for much more spread in a short period of time, so I am worried about that.”

Attendance was reported to be significantly lower than expected, but Inglesby said the rally was still “concerning in terms of public health risks.”

He noted that attendees were packed close together, shouting and shaking hands, and that many were not wearing masks. “All of those things will increase the risk of spread,” he said.

Host Chris Wallace asked whether there was “some hypocrisy” among health officials who did not express the same level of concern about mass protests this month over racism and police brutality.

Inglesby responded that there was a danger of increased spread at largescale demonstrations, as well, but that the risks were lower outdoors than indoors.