 Welcome to the coronavirus weekly brief. We're your hosts. I'm David Sturman. And I'm Alyssa Sallick-Furk with New America. Here are the headlines you need to know. The political fight over the virus response heated up over the weekend. On Friday, President Trump tweeted support for protests against stay-at-home orders, calling for the protesters to liberate Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia. The tweets were pithy with one tweet reading merely liberate Minnesota exclamation mark in all caps. The next liberate Michigan. And a third took a few extra words to discuss gun rights. Liberate Virginia and save your great Second Amendment. It is under siege. Despite calling for such liberation, Trump later said he was not calling for the lifting of staying-at-home orders. When asked if he was making such a call, he said, no, but elements of what they've done, referring to the governors, are too much. It's too tough. Trump had earlier last week placed a responsibility for opening the economy into the governor's hands. Trump's tweets come as protests that began last week continued into the weekend across the country. Trump's tweets also reflect the White House's casting about for a political strategy to defend the administration's response to the pandemic. Appearing to side with the protesters provides one possible way to energize the GOP base. However, most Americans are wary of reopening the economy too soon. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that 66 percent of the people surveyed stated they feared social distancing would end too soon. A Wall Street Journal NBC poll found that 60 percent were concerned the United States might move too quickly to reopen. The Wall Street Journal NBC poll found a partisan split with 77 percent of Democrats expressing concern compared to only 39 percent of Republicans. Another strategy the GOP is looking at is placing the focus on China. As the New York Times notes, the GOP strategy of focusing on China's responsibility is clear in GOP ads, interviews of government officials on Fox, and from Trump's family on Twitter. However, at times during the response, Trump has sought to tone down criticism of China, even flattering its government, something that poses a potential challenge to the strategy. The Biden campaign has picked up on this vulnerability and has released an ad attacking Trump on the issue of embracing Xi multiple times. Meanwhile, Congress and the Trump administration are close to striking a deal on a new bill with $400 billion in support for small businesses, according to reports over the weekend from Politico and Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal. The agreement may be made as soon as today, congressional aides told Politico. The previous $350 billion allocated for small businesses was exhausted last week as we covered in previous briefs. As the political fights and responses rage, Americans are hurting. With 22 million Americans having filed for unemployment, millions of Americans are losing their health insurance because it is tied to their jobs. As reported by the Washington Post, one report from the Economic Policy Institute estimates that 9.2 million Americans may have lost coverage. Another estimate from the consulting firm, Health Management Associates, predicts between 12 and 35 million people will lose their insurance because of the pandemic. And on Saturday, the New York Times reported that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stated that based on coronavirus case data, New York has passed its virus peak, stating, quote, if the data holds and if this trend holds, we are past the high point. And all indications at this point are that we are on a descent. If this decline in cases continues, that's great news for the state, which has seen a higher rate of infection than any country besides the United States. As of Sunday, New York's coronavirus infection count was over 232,000, and the state has lost over 13,000 New Yorkers. The next closest country is Spain, with an infection rate of nearly 196,000 as of Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University data. And as he has stated many times before, Governor Cuomo emphasized the importance of antibody testing, which will start in the state this week. On Sunday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio continued to plead with the federal government for more funding during a press briefing. New York City has made the decision to cut over $2 billion in funding to municipal services for the city over the course of the next year. Mayor Bill de Blasio compared President Trump to President Gerald Ford in his treatment of New York City during the 1970s financial crisis, asking him, quote, Mr. President, are you going to save New York City, or are you going to tell New York City to drop dead? Also, a new Harvard University study discusses different lengths of immunity for the coronavirus. Only time will tell how long that will be. Now the World Health Organization has echoed this concern over the weekend. The WHO warns that coronavirus antibodies can't guarantee long term COVID-19 immunity for recovered patients or for former asymptomatic carriers. Antibody tests can confirm whether or not a person has contracted the virus, but these tests cannot confirm if individuals are immune to it after contraction, still leaving them susceptible to COVID-19 disease. According to Emergency Room Doctor at Boston Medical Center, Dr. John Santiago, over the last week we've seen an interesting phenomenon where people who've been initially diagnosed a week ago, they're coming back to the hospital, sicker and often requiring a ventilator or the ICU. That just demonstrates how insidious the virus can be. This anecdotal evidence from Boston emphasizes the WHO's point that those, quote, who recover from the coronavirus have the antibodies to fight a second infection, end quote. This explains the evidence from multiple countries showing patients testing positive after completing treatment as reported by Business Insider. According to reporting from the Daily Beast, after some Italians successfully recovered from COVID-19, they were still testing positive 30 days later. Bloomberg reported a similar phenomenon in South Korea. Patients have tested positive and negative during short periods of time, so the Korean CDC is still investigating why this anomaly is happening. If you see our daily brief, go to the address in our show notes and follow us on Twitter at newamericaisp. And tune in next Monday for our next episode.