Beyond the Headlines: how did the US coronavirus outbreak become the world's worst?

With cases rising and the issue of what to do about the pandemic becoming more about politics than science, what's next for America?

America is divided. Even a global health emergency has become a battle of wills about freedoms, economic costs and patriotism. But none of that has stopped the US rocketing to the top of the global chart for the highest number of coronavirus cases.

It took the US more than three months to reach a million Covid-19 cases on April 28. Another 44 days to reach two million. Just 26 days after that to pass three million on July 8 and now it is setting new record increases every few days.

President Donald Trump insists that Covid-19 will just "somehow disappear" and that the government's management has so far been exemplary. His political opponents lament a bungled, mistimed and miscommunicated strategy that has done little to stem the rising case number.

But how did America become the hardest-hit nation, what is Mr Trump doing about it and how might it impact November's presidential election?

This week we speak to Amish Adalja from the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security, Ethan Fosse, an assistant professor in Sociology at the University of Toronto and Willy Lowry, a former producer for The National who recently arrived back in New York from Abu Dhabi.