‘On the brink’: US coronavirus cases surge in final days before election

The US is surging towards record numbers of new coronavirus infections above 100,000 a day, health experts have warned, just as a presidential campaign with the pandemic as its core issue enters its final week. In a further blow to Donald Trump’s hopes of keeping the White House, the US death toll from Covid-19 will pass 225,000 by early this week, bringing extra scrutiny to the president’s repeated but evidently false claims that the crisis is…