twiceの指すところ

In 2018, more than 10,000 people applied to be refugees in Japan, but only 42 were accepted – compared with Canada, which accepted 28,000 refugees out of more than 55,000 who applied. However, for Japan that was still twice(*) as many as 2017, when almost 20,000 people applied and only 20 were accepted.

最後の文にtwice（コメ印の部分です）とありますが、何が二倍になっているのでしょうか？