In the final hours before election day, one of Donald Trump’s closing messages to Americans is an exaggerated threat: that a Joe Biden presidency will result in a national Covid-19 lockdown.

Speaking in Iowa on Sunday, the president said the election was a “choice between a deadly Biden lockdown … or a safe vaccine that ends the pandemic”.

Coronavirus cases are surging in the US and most battleground states are particularly badly affected. On Friday, the total case count surpassed 9m while the daily count set a new world record, at about 100,000. On Sunday 81,493 new cases were reported, according to Johns Hopkins University, and 447 new deaths. Nearly 231,000 people have died.

In Iowa, painting a