https://www.wired.com/story/state-alliances-are-leading-the-us-fight-against-covid-19/

A couple of weeks ago, states from coast to coast were racing to find personal protective equipment and ventilators so their hospitals would be ready for Covid-19. “It was at the height of what seemed like the Hunger Games, everybody out there fighting for their life, people buying orders out from under you,” says David Postman, chief of staff to Washington governor Jay Inslee.

Then a phone call between staffers for the governors of Washington and California sparked what would become a new alliance. It made sense they’d start talking. King County in Washington had the first reported case of the novel coronavirus in the US; in California, the San Francisco Bay Area had the first reported community transmission of the disease. Local governments in both places were early and aggressive in instituting social distancing and stay-at-home measures.