For months, the U.S. government has been quietly collecting information on hundreds of thousands of coronavirus cases across the country. Today, we tell the story of how The Times got hold of that data, and what it says about the nation’s outbreak.

Plus: a conversation with three U.S. astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Guests: Robert Gebeloff, a reporter for The New York Times specializing in data analysis.

Bob Behnken, Doug Hurley and Chris Cassidy, NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily

Background reading: 

• The C.D.C. figures provide the fullest and most extensive look yet at the racial inequity of the coronavirus.
• A Times analysis published in late May found that Democrats were far more likely to live in counties that had been ravaged by the virus, while Republicans were more likely to live in counties that had been relatively unscathed.
• A team of New York Times journalists is also working to track every coronavirus case in the United States, and The Times has made its data open to the public.