China says it has conducted over 90 million coronavirus tests since start of pandemic

China announced Wednesday that the country has conducted more than 90 million coronavirus tests since the beginning of the pandemic.

Guo Yanhong, an official with China’s National Health Commission, said that as of Monday 90.41 million nucleic acid tests have been conducted, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The reported test numbers are three times higher than in the U.S., which has completed about 29.33 million tests, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Chinese officials have said they extended their testing capacity from about 1.26 million per day in March to 3.78 million tests per day now.

After a second outbreak arose out of Wuhan, where the virus is believed to have originated, within two weeks 6.5 million city residents had been tested, according to The Washington Post.

China has a population of about 1.4 billion, compared to around 332 million in the U.S.

The U.S. leads the world in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 2.3 million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Still, experts have questioned the accuracy of China’s COVID-19 data, saying more people have been infected with the disease and died than the country is reporting. 

Chinese officials have moved to prioritize testing among restaurant, supermarket and food-delivery workers in Beijing.

China’s National Health Commission said the number of testing centers has more than doubled since early March to reach 4,800, according to the Post, with almost 30,000 Chinese technicians involved. 

China’s reported numbers come as President Trump has said he asked his aides to “slow the testing down” during his Saturday rally in Tulsa, Okla., prompting sharp criticism from Democrats and public health experts.

The White House had later said Trump was joking, but he refuted that, saying “I don’t kid” on coronavirus testing.