WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday compared President Donald Trump to “the man who refuses to ask for directions” as she pleaded with the White House to seek input from the nation’s scientific leaders to reverse the rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths.

The Democratic speaker urged Trump to invoke the full power of the Defense Production Act to boost much-needed supplies for coronavirus testing and treatment as a weary nation battles the outbreak.

Tensions are rising as Congress considers the next virus relief package with no apparent endgame in sight to a pandemic that now threatens longer-term economic and societal turmoil that first envisioned.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is poised to release the GOP’s $1 trillion package as soon as next week. That plan is a counteroffer to the $3 trillion proposal that House Democrats approved in May, before the spike in coronavirus cases and hot spots.