U.S. Coronavirus Blog: Small Business Help 'Close'; More Protests

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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday he thinks a deal can be reached soon to add $300 billion for the small business rescue program, and Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said in a separate interview that health experts aren't sure if being infected by the illness means immunity moving forward.

The updates given by the two members of the Trump administration on Sunday come as more than 40,000 people have now died from the coronavirus in the United States.

Mnuchin said in an interview with CNN Sunday morning that he's "hopeful" about a deal being reached soon for the added funds.

"I'm hopeful that we can reach an agreement that the Senate can pass this tomorrow, and that the House can take it up on Tuesday. Wednesday we would be back up and running," Mnuchin said.

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Vice President Mike Pence also indicated in an interview Sunday morning that Congress was "close" to a deal on expanding the program.

The additional funding for the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses is needed after the Small Business Administration reached the $349 billion lending limit approved in the last stimulus package in three weeks.

Nearly 1.7 million loans have already been approved, and thousands of small business owners whose loans have not been processed must now wait for Congress to approve the additional funding.

Mnuchin wasn't the only Trump administration member making news Sunday. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, told CBS that health experts still aren't sure if being infected by the illness will protect those who recover.

"That's why these studies are going on with plasma and giving plasma to sick patients to really see if that antibody confers protective immunity and help to the individual who is sick, as well as really doing studies with vaccines and looking, seeing whether the antibodies that are produced are effective," Birx told CBS.

Birx emphasized that health experts weren't sure if getting the virus meant immunity for a month, six months, or many years.

A few hours after Birx's comments, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in his daily briefings that the state will start testing residents for the antibodies that show they have been infected by the coronavirus and recovered from COVID-19.

"We're going to do that in the most aggressive way in the nation," he said in the briefing. "The FDA has approved the state's antibody test. We're going to be rolling it out to do the largest survey of any state population that has been done."

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Cuomo's announcement also comes right after the federal government loosened controls on testing, allowing states' public labs to do their own instead of relying on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Sunday that coronavirus social distancing violators could face a fine up to $1,000.

"We don't want to give fines," de Blasio said in a news briefing. "But this is serious and it's going to get harder with the fine weather."

New York City has 126,368 coronavirus cases and 33,079 hospitalizations linked to the disease, Health Department records show. As of Saturday, 8,448 New Yorkers had lost their lives to COVID-19.

As officials in New York City crack down on social distancing, rallies across the country broke out Saturday in protest of government orders to stay inside.

At a rally Saturday in Texas, where a group marched on Austin's Capitol building, the group violated social distancing orders in what was dubbed the, "You Can't Close America" rally.

Protests were also held Saturday at statehouses and in city streets in Indianapolis, Indiana; Carson City, Nevada; and Brookfield, Wisconsin. More are being planned for the coming week.

"This weekend, Texans of all stripes will assemble outside the capitol building in Austin, Texas, to protest the authoritarian lockdown orders being imposed by petty tyrants at the local level," the rally posting for Austin reads on conspiracy site InfoWars.

The rally was set up by Owen Shroyer, a host on InfoWars. Among the website's claims: that the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks, a mass shooting at a bar in Florida, the creation of tornadoes in the midwest and the Boston Marathon bombing.

On Saturday, Trump said he understood the protests — which he had just encouraged through a series of tweets — because some governors "have gone too far." He singled out only states with Democratic governors leaving out states such as Ohio, where a Republican governor has imposed some of the strictest social distancing policies in the country.

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On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence looked to defend Trump's tweets during an interview with Fox News.

"The American people know that no one in America wants to reopen the country more than Donald Trump," Pence said to Fox, adding that Trump will continue to "encourage governors safely and responsibly let Americans go back to work."

Meanwhile, the hungry are getting hungrier.

Farmers are being forced to dump thousands of gallons of milk and destroy millions of pounds of fresh produce due to a lack of infrastructure to distribute it to food pantries in need, according to a report from The New York Times.

With restaurants and schools shut down, farmers are wading through surplus food but don't have the resources and volunteer manpower necessary to physically transport it to food banks.

The nation's 12 largest school districts will have to spend $12 million to $19 million through the end of June to keep up with the demands of feeding communities during a crisis, according to an estimation from Katie Wilson, the executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance, given to the New York Times.

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The virus has killed more than 40,400 Americans, including 17 whose bodies were discovered stored at a New Jersey nursing home.

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