The United States on Friday summoned China’s ambassador after a senior official in Beijing tweeted the “ridiculous” suggestion that the US military started the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the State Department.

David Stilwell, the top US diplomat for Asia, issued a “stern representation” to Ambassador Cui Tiankai a day after foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted the conspiracy theory.

“China is seeking to deflect criticism for its role in starting a global pandemic and not telling the world,” a State Department official said.

“Spreading conspiracy theories is dangerous and ridiculous. We wanted to put the government on notice we won’t tolerate it, for the good of the Chinese people and the world,” the official said.

Taking to Twitter, Zhao said that both Mandarin and English that gained wide traction on Chinese social media, a day earlier suggested that “patient zero” in the global pandemic may have come from the United States — not the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan, where cases were first reported in late 2019.

“It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation,” Zhao further posted.

His comment came as President Donald Trump’s administration, which has faced increasing criticism over its own coronavirus response, has increasingly highlighted the illness’s foreign origins, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dubbing it the “Wuhan virus.”

Trump on Friday announced a national state of emergency, freeing up $50 billion in federal funds for the battle against the coronavirus pandemic as he vowed to “vastly” ramp up testing capacity.

Conspiracy theories have been widely disseminated over social media as the novel coronavirus takes a heavy impact, with more than 5,300 people dead and 140,000 infected worldwide.

The declaration came as the number of coronavirus cases in the US hit 1,800 with 41 deaths.

He declared the emergency under a 1988 law for funneling aid to states and local administrations.

Russia denied responsibility for the social media effort, which recalled the former Soviet Union’s campaign in the 1980s to link HIV to the US government.

The death toll in China from the novel coronavirus outbreak has risen to 3,179, the country’s National Health Commission said on Friday.

The global death toll is now over 4,900, with more than 134,000 confirmed cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which has declared the outbreak “a pandemic.”

Over 110 countries and regions have reported 118,326 confirmed cases, including 37,371 cases outside China.

More than 4,000 people have died and over 110,000 have been infected worldwide, with the majority in China, though daily infections are now growing at a much faster pace abroad.

The novel Coronavirus outbreak has caused alarm as it has crossed global fatalities in the 2002-03 SARS epidemic.

Italy, a close US ally, officially has the most cases of COVID-19 after China.