Coronavirus live updates: Fired Navy commander to be reassigned, Florida takes cruise passengers

This is CNBC’s live blog covering all the latest news on the coronavirus outbreak. All times below are in Eastern time. This blog will be updated throughout the day as the news breaks. 

• Global cases: More than 1,026,900
• Global deaths: At least 53,975
• US cases: At least 245,500
• US deaths: At least 6,058

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

3M warned that the Trump administration’s request for the company to stop exporting respirator masks could make the protective gear less available in the U.S.

The American manufacturing giant shared that caution a day after President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to force 3M to produce respirator masks.

The company said it was already working with the administration on getting more masks to the U.S. —Kevin Breuninger

The fired commander of a U.S. aircraft carrier that suffered a coronavirus outbreak will not be thrown out of the Navy but rather reassigned, acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told Reuters on Friday, adding that
an investigation would determine if he should face disciplinary action.

In an interview, Modly said the probe would look into the communications and the chain of command after Captain Brett Crozier was relieved of his command for sharing a scathing letter regarding the outbreak of the virus on the USS Theodore Roosevelt too widely, effectively allowing it to be leaked to the media.

“He’ll get reassigned, he’s not thrown out of the Navy,” Modly said. —Reuters

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has sparked public outcry over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, with a movement to impeach the right-wing nationalist leader gaining popular support. The president of Latin America’s largest economy has repeatedly played down the threat of the pandemic, dismissing it as a “little flu” and condemning state governors for imposing lockdowns that are causing job losses.

He has also contradicted his own health minister’s advice over self-isolation and social distancing, encouraging people to end their time in quarantine and return to work.

All but three of Brazil’s 27 states have refused to relax lockdown measures, and citizens in many urban centers can be heard banging pots and pans from their homes each evening as an act of protest to the president’s demands. —Sam Meredith

The government’s survey of establishments painted a grim picture of the U.S. employment situation through early March, but its poll of households was far worse.

The household survey, which asks individual residents how many people are working there, showed a stunning drop of 2,987,000 workers for the month.

That compares to the 701,000 nonfarm payrolls decline reported in the establishment survey and gives another perspective to just how bad the situation has gotten since the economy has all but shut down to protect against the coronavirus spread. —Jeff Cox

Passengers from an ill-fated cruise were carefully freed from their cabins and allowed to touch dry land for the first time in weeks, following the removal of 14 critically ill people who were wheeled off to Florida hospitals bracing for an onslaught of coronavirus patients.

The exodus from the Zaandaam and its sister ship the Rotterdam was expected to continue throughout the day. Floridians were getting off first, followed by other passengers. Buses were taking people healthy enough to travel directly to the airport, where they’ll board chartered flights home without going through the terminal.

At least four buses brought the first small groups to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where they prepared to board two planes waiting on the tarmac. The passengers wore masks, while paramedics and airline workers were fully suited up and masked in protective gear.

They’ll be followed by what Carnival said was its last ship carrying passengers to a U.S. port since the pandemic was declared. The Coral Princess is expected to arrive at the Port Everglades terminal on Saturday with more than 1,000 passengers who have been isolating in their cabins, including 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on board. —Associated Press

U.S. services sector activity slowed to a more than 3-1/2-year low in March, with industries reporting a moderation in new orders and a drop in employment amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has brought the country to a sudden stop.

The Institute for Supply Management said its non-manufacturing activity index fell to a reading of 52.5 last month, the lowest since August 2016, from 57.3 in February.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion in the services sector, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index dropping to a reading of 44.0 in March. —Reuters

FedEx said it would slash its chief executive officer’s pay and draw down $1.5 billion from a credit facility as delivery services take a hit from coronavirus-led lockdowns across the globe.

The company, which also suspended its financial outlook, said its board had approved a 91% reduction in CEO Frederick Smith’s base salary for six-month period from April 1 to Sept. 30. —Reuters

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for another bill to expand the provisions in the $2 trillion package Congress passed last week to limit the economic devastation from the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s not enough,” Pelosi told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” about the last relief measure, after the government employment report showed the U.S. economy lost 701,000 jobs in early March as businesses started to close.

The California Democrat said she wants more direct payments to individuals, beyond the chunks of up to $1,200 lawmakers previously approved. She pushed for more small business loan funding beyond the $350 billion in the last law, and to extend beefed-up unemployment insurance for two more months. —Jacob Pramuk

The White House reportedly tried to force 3M to export 10 million N95 respirator masks from its Singapore facilities to the U.S. rather than sending them to its markets in Asia, the Financial Times first reported, citing a person familiar with the conversations.

The Minnesota-based company was reluctant to accept the White House request on legal and humanitarian grounds since health-care workers across the region would be left without protection, the person said.

Peter Navarro, the White House advisor on trade and manufacturing, said that the administration “had some issues” making sure all the production 3M does around the world is going to the right places. The White House invoked the Defense Production Act on the company in an effort to boost its production of face masks.

In a statement, 3M said the administration also requested the company cease exporting respirators to Canadian and Latin American markets, however, it said there are significant humanitarian implications of doing so. —Noah Higgins-Dunn

Google has launched a new website that uses anonymous location data collected from users of Google products and services to show the level of social distancing taking place in various locations.

The COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports web site will show population data trends of six categories: Retail and recreation, grocery and pharmacy, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential. The data will track changes over the course of several weeks, and as recent as 48-to-72 hours prior, and will initially cover 131 countries as well as individual counties within certain states. 

Google says the data will be collected in aggregate, rather than at an individual level, and it won’t show absolute numbers of people showing up at parks or grocery stores. The idea instead is to outline percentages, which highlight potential surges in attendance. —Jennifer Elias

The world will experience another pandemic, and it could be even more severe than the new coronavirus, author Richard Preston told CNBC on Friday. 

“We hear some people saying, ‘Well this is a once-in-a-100-year event.’ It is absolutely not,” Preston said on “Squawk Box.” “I think a worse-case scenario could be worse than coronavirus.”

Preston is the author of the 1994 book, “The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus.” It was the basis of 2019 TV mini-series from the National Geographic Channel. —Kevin Stankiewicz

Millions of small business owners on Friday will start applying for government-backed loans that will let them pay people not to work with the hope that once the economy reopens companies can pick up where they left off. But confusion about the Small Business Administration loans is widespread at banks and among potential borrowers.

The banks responsible for accepting the applications and distributing the money aren’t all up to speed and, inundated with inquiries, are relaying differing messages to their clients. CNBC reported on Thursday that JPMorgan Chase, the biggest U.S. bank, told customers by email that it would likely not be ready to start taking applications on Friday.

The loan in question is the paycheck protection program (PPP), and it accounts for $349 billion of the $2 trillion coronavirus rescue package, or CARES Act, passed by Congress and signed into law last week. Businesses with fewer than 500 employees are eligible, and that includes independent contractors. Employers can apply to receive up to 2.5 times their average monthly payroll expense, including health-care benefits, for annual salaries up to $100,000. Loans max out at $10 million. —Ari Levy

The White House tried to force 3M to export 10 million N95 respirator masks from its Singapore facilities to the U.S., rather than sending them to its markets in Asia, the Financial Times first reported, citing a person familiar with the conversations. The Minnesota-based company was reluctant to accept the White House request on legal and humanitarian grounds since healthcare workers across the region would be left without protection, the person told the FT.

The White House invoked the Defense Production Act in an effort to boost 3M’s production of face masks. In a statement, 3M said the administration also requested the company cease exporting respirators to Canadian and Latin American markets. However, it said there are significant humanitarian implications of doing so.

“Ceasing all export of respirators produced in the United States would likely cause other countries to retaliate and do the same, as some have already done,” the company said in a statement. “If that were to occur, the net number of respirators being made available to the United States would actually decrease.” —Noah Higgins-Dunn

Nonfarm payrolls dropped by 701,000 in March, according to Labor Department numbers that begin to show the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus crisis.

The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% as employers just began to cut payrolls ahead of social distancing practices that shut down large swaths of the U.S. economy in order to stop the virus’s spread.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a payroll decline of 10,000 and for the unemployment rate to rise to 3.7%. —Jeff Cox

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the ad industry’s major awards festival and conference held in France each summer, has been canceled due to the coronavirus.

The festival, originally scheduled for June 22 through June  26, was postponed in March to Oct. 26 through Oct 30, but organizers announced the decision to cancel it for good this year.

“As the impact from COVID-19 continues to be felt across the world on consumers and our customers across the marketing, creative and media industries, it has become clear to us our customers’ priorities have shifted to the need to protect people, to serve consumers with essential items and to focus on preserving companies, society and economies,” organizers said in a statement Friday. 

The next festival will take place June 21 through June 25 in 2021. —Megan Graham

Italian luxury shoemaker Sergio Rossi has died aged 85 after being hospitalized with the coronavirus, the mayor of the designer’s home town said.

Italy has recorded more deaths from coronavirus than any other country in the world, with 13,915 fatalities as of Thursday. The elderly have been particularly hard hit. Rossi died on Thursday in the small town of Cesena in central Italy.

“He was among the founders of the high-end women’s footwear district in the area of Forlì and Cesena in the mid-20th century,” said Luciana Garbuglia, mayor of San Mauro Pascoli, where Rossi was born in 1935 and where he founded his brand.

French luxury fashion group Kering took over the brand in 1999. It then passed into the hands of the Italian private equity fund Investindustrial in 2015, when Rossi had already retired. —Reuters

As of 6 a.m. ET, Spain had reported 117,710 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University, surpassing the total count of cases in Italy, the original epicenter of Europe’s outbreak. According to Hopkins, Italy had reported 115,242 cases as of 6 a.m. That makes Spain second in the world for COVID-19 cases, behind only the U.S. Spain typically reports daily new cases several hours ahead of Italy, and the numbers will likely change throughout the day. —Will Feuer

U.K. Health Minister itMatt Hancock reportedly said the deadliest peak of Britain’s coronavirus outbreak could be on Easter Sunday. 

In an interview with Sky News, Hancock said he “would defer to the scientists on exact predictions,” but the peak of the U.K. outbreak falling on April 12 was “one perfectly possible outcome.” 

To date, the U.K. has reported more than 34,000 cases of the COVID-19 infection, with 2,926 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. —Sam Meredith

BMW Chief Executive Oliver Zipse said the carmaker is focusing on preserving the health of its balance sheet and workforce.

“No company can possibly get through something like this unscathed. Guaranteeing our liquidity needs to happen very quickly. The Management Board are currently meeting twice as often as normal, so we can make the necessary decisions,” Zipse said in a statement.

“We are preparing to ramp up production as soon as the time is right in full compliance with all the safety aspects, and with international coordination. It’s essential that we synchronize with the supplier network on this,” he added. —Reuters

March’s employment report could show the most monthly job losses in a decade, but it’s only a fraction of the real hit to the workforce that came when many states issued stay-at-home orders late in the month.

Economists expect a consensus decline of 100,000 nonfarm payrolls when data is released at 8:30 am ET, according to Refinitiv. But the survey for the report was done before many states began telling residents to stay home. For the final two weeks of the month, 10 million people sought unemployment benefits as businesses and schools closed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. —Patti Domm

The coronavirus pandemic is hitting European economies sharply, with the latest economic data showing massive falls in services activity across the region.

In Italy, the services industry dropped in March at the fastest rate since the IHS Markit survey began in 1998. In Germany, the services sector laid off staff at the steepest rate in about 23 years. In Spain, services activity contracted for the first time in six-and-a-half years.

The data released Friday showed the final Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index — which includes services and manufacturing — for the whole euro zone crashed to a record low of 29.7 in March, from 51.6 in February. This was the biggest monthly fall since the survey began. —Silvia Amaro

The amount of people that have died from the coronavirus in Spain has seen its first daily fall since March 26. A total of 932 people died in the last 24 hours, down from 950 people the previous day, according to Reuters who cited the country’s health ministry. Spain’s death toll now stands at 10,935. —Matt Clinch

The People’s Bank of China said it was reducing the amount of cash that small and mid-sized banks need to hold in reserve. It will reportedly free up around 400 billion yuan ($56.38 billion) in liquidity and aid the country’s economy which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic. —Matt Clinch

Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced stricter social distancing measures in the city-state, joining a chorus of countries globally that have done so to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

The measures include closing most workplaces, except those offering “essential services” such as food establishments, hospitals, and transport, Lee said. All schools will also be closed temporarily, he said. The prime minister also said his government is rethinking its advice that only those who are ill need to wear masks. —Yen Nee Lee

Read CNBC’s coverage from CNBC’s Asia-Pacific and Europe teams overnight here: Spain’s services industry records ‘unprecedented’ decline, survey shows

CORRECTION: This blog has been updated to correct the spelling of Cannes Lions in the headline.