Trump claims China lying about new coronavirus death toll in furious Twitter rant

President says US numbers 'not even close' as Wuhan reports spike in fatalities previously not attributed to Covid-19

Donald Trump claims that China's coronavirus death toll is "far higher" than what the country has confirmed.

He also claims the US death toll is "not even close" to China's. More than 4,600 deaths have been reported in China; the US has confirmed more than 33,000.

The Covid-19-related death toll in Wuhan spiked by 50 per cent as the country begins attributing earlier deaths to the disease.

But the country's reported numbers represent roughly an eighth of the total deaths in the US, far fewer than the president's claims that the death toll is "not even close" to US figures as he continues his claims that the country is covering up its coronavirus mortality rate.

This week, the administration has repeatedly pressured China and the World Health Organisation to "come clean" about the latest coronavirus origins, as the White House floats theories that the virus escaped from a research lab in Wuhan.

The president has accused the WHO of "covering up" the outbreak as reports surface that he had ignored or downplayed several warnings of the outbreak's impact as early as January from members of his administration.

That month, the president said: "China has been working hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency."

Through February, the president repeatedly said that he spoke with President Xi Jinping and was assured that the country is "working hard" to combat the outbreak.

On Tuesday, the president announced the US would suspend financial support for the WHO after he accused the United Nations agency of "severely mismanaging" the global response and "pushing misinformation" from China's government.

His latest remarks follow a flood of tweets as he appears to respond to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo during his daily press conference, responding to the president's push to "reopen" states during the pandemic.

Officials in China have pushed back against the administration's claims and have accused the president of relying on China to shift the blame for his own mishandling of the pandemic response.

On Thursday, the president continued to downplay criticisms about his response, saying that "people should have told us about this" and "they should've told the rest of the world, too" despite several briefings from his own officials and the dismissal of his pandemic response team while in office. The president has refused to respond to questions about his administration's lack of a response through February after putting travel restrictions from China in place in late January.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, who had previously suggested that the virus could have emerged from the US, said on Friday that the White House is promoting the lab virus theory to distract from those criticisms.