Coronavirus Watch: How Americans said they’d spend $1,400 stimulus checks

The House of Representatives could vote as soon as Friday on President Joe Biden's proposed $1.9 trillion relief package, which would include $1,400 stimulus checks.

If the bill passes, it would go to the Senate, where many Republicans, who argue that assistance dissuades people from looking for work, are looking to cut out some of the provisions. Nearly 80% of adults said they need another economic assistance package, according to the Pew Research Center.

Paste BN asked people around the country how they would spend $1,400. Here's what they said.

It's Thursday, and this is the Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here's more news you need to know:

• Americans should not try to pick and choose which vaccine they get but should take the first one that is available, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday. He said it’s a race "between the virus and getting vaccines into people" – and the longer people wait, "the better chance the virus has to get a variant or a mutation."
• Pfizer-BioNTech will begin testing a booster shot to combat variants, the companies announced Thursday. The announcement came one day after new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine cut symptomatic COVID-19 cases across all age groups by 94%.
• About a quarter of the nation's largest school district's 1 million students were back in classrooms Thursday as New York City reopened public middle schools. The move provides in-classroom learning for another 62,000 students whose parents opted out of remote education.
• Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy has tested positive for COVID-19 and has mild symptoms, his office said Wednesday. Dunleavy, a 59-year-old Republican, began feeling symptoms Tuesday night and was tested on Wednesday morning.
• Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that her sister, Mercia Bowser, 64, died Wednesday from pneumonia she developed as a complication from COVID-19.

Today's numbers: The U.S. has reported more than 28.2 million COVID-19 cases and 503,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide, there have been more than 112.3 million cases and more than 2.4 million deaths. More than 13.4% of people in the U.S. have received at least one vaccine shot, and about 6% of people have received both doses, according to the CDC.

See the numbers in your area here, check out where cases are rising here, and see how many vaccines your state has received here.

Are you on Clubhouse? If so, tune in to our live discussion on COVID-19 here 7 p.m. ET Thursday.

– Grace Hauck, Paste BN breaking news reporter, @grace_hauck