In an election year marked by bitter partisan rancor, the coronavirus outbreak brought Democrats and Republicans into agreement this week on a $2 trillion stimulus designed to undergird an economy devastated by the ongoing global health crisis.

On the U.S. Senate floor, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell likened the relief package to a “wartime level of investment into our nation,” a testament to the high stakes of responding to a global pandemic that has claimed thousands of lives and upended everyday life. On Friday, as the United States emerged as the country with the most detected cases of the coronavirus in the world, the House followed the Senate and passed the stimulus package.