The latest President Trump signed into law the largest stimulus bill in U.S. history hours after the House passed the $2.2-trillion relief package. The measure includes checks of up to $1,200 for most Americans, hundreds of billions of dollars in business loans and unemployment protections — all of it intended to blunt a sudden recession that has already eliminated more than 3 million jobs and in some ways echoes the Great Depression. Some House members wore surgical gloves or sat in the visitors' gallery to avoid possible infection as they passed the bill on a voice vote. The bipartisan effort marked a rare spot of unity in a government otherwise fractured and flailing against the pandemic. Governors and local health officials are demanding the federal government do more to help with huge shortages of medical equipment as the United States leads the world in confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 90,000 infections and 1,400 deaths, "We don't need a backup. We need a Tom Brady," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) told Trump on a conference call with other governors on Thursday, comparing the president's strategy of leaving states in charge of getting their own supplies to a football team playing without a quarterback. Three months into the crisis, nearly nine in 10 mayors report shortages of test kits, face masks, ventilators and other equipment, according to a national survey. Hospitals are competing against each other to buy scarce supplies, inflating prices and forcing some to cut deals with unverified cold-callers. The president invoked the Defense Production Act to force General Motors to make ventilators, after weeks of resistance. "I just haven't had to use it," Trump had said Thursday, insisting companies were volunteering the necessary efforts. But Friday morning, Trump raged on Twitter at GM chief executive Mary T. Barra, claiming she had backed away from an agreement to make tens of thousands of ventilators, and he invoked the act a few hours later. Equipment shortages are "one of the most urgent threats to our collective ability to save lives," World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned Friday, as the global number of infections surpassed 575,000. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus in Britain, where firefighters have been tapped to deliver food and collect bodies. Italy reported 919 new deaths — the largest one-day toll anywhere. Nearly 300 people in Iran died after drinking methanol, falsely believing it would help them ward off the disease. And the virus has been found in a cat in the Belgian city of Liège, adding to evidence that sick people may be able to infect their pets. In contrast to other countries with accelerating infection rates, the White House is pushing to relax guidelines on quarantines and business closures in some parts of the U.S., and the government is developing a program to assess risk levels for each county in the United States. Trump has said he would like Americans back at work and packed into churches by mid-April for Easter. Republican governors in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi are already resisting the kinds of strict social distancing measure other states have enforced. Many health officials believe more quarantines are needed, and fear reducing them any time soon could lead to catastrophic levels of disease. But The Post reports that "a growing contingent of Trump supporters have pushed the narrative that health experts are part of a deep-state plot to hurt Trump's reelection efforts by damaging the economy and keeping America shut down as long as possible." | 
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