check-new-release sometimes crashes in python-apt

The Ubuntu Error Tracker has many a crash report about check-new-release (a symlink to do-release-upgrade -q) and a failure of python-apt to open a file in /var/lib/apt/lists/ e.g.:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/ubuntu-release-upgrader/check-new-release", line 116, in <module>
    useProposed=options.proposed_release)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UpdateManager/Core/MetaRelease.py", line 93, in __init__
    cache = apt.Cache()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 107, in __init__
    self.open(progress)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 153, in open
    self._records = apt_pkg.PackageRecords(self._cache)
SystemError: E:Could not open file /var/lib/apt/lists/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_trusty-updates_universe_binary-amd64_Packages - open (2: No such file or directory)

Here are some error buckets about this:

https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/e34676a93a37815d10738407f0b25ad656b3a68f
https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/25d8256e5566c88cd65d97ea12e76399c4ea67ec

I tried just removing list files and that did not cause the problem. Maybe it happens when an update of the lists is occurring and check-new-release is called?