⁍ The pandemic that has upended life across the United States this year is roaring back in the days leading up to Tuesday’s contest between Republican Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

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⁍ Biden holds a comfortable lead in national polls, which show a public increasingly dismayed by Trump’s handling of the largest public health crisis in U.S. living memory.

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⁍ At an outdoor rally in Goodyear, Arizona, outside of Phoenix, Trump continued to argue against taking stricter measures against the resurgent virus.

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– With less than a week before Election Day, President Trump held a pair of in-person campaign rallies in Arizona on Wednesday despite a US surge in COVID-19 cases and criticism he is prioritizing his re-election above the health of his supporters. The pandemic that has upended life across the United States this year, killing more than 227,000 people and causing millions of job losses, is roaring back in the days leading up to Tuesday’s contest between Republican Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden. Biden holds a comfortable lead in national polls, which show a public increasingly dismayed by Trump’s handling of the largest public health crisis in US living memory. Polls in battleground states that will likely decide the election are tighter than the national surveys. At an outdoor rally in Goodyear, Arizona, Trump continued to argue against taking stricter measures against the resurgent virus. “Biden and the Democrat socialists will delay the vaccine, prolong the pandemic, shutter your schools and shut down our country,’ Trump told the attendees, who were tightly packed together with just some wearing masks. “And your state is open right? Your state is nice and open.” A number of drugmakers are competing to bring a coronavirus vaccine to market, but one is not expected to be ready before next week’s election. A Trump adviser said the rallies were “priceless” given Biden’s dominance on the ad airwaves. “These rallies generate significant free media coverage that helps offset whatever money advantage Biden has. Fox News basically runs the whole rallies,” the adviser told Reuters.