Governments and health officials are trying to strike a balance between reopening economies and staving off a second wave of infections. Drugmaker Moderna received a “crucial” Food and Drug Administration approval for phase 2 trials of its vaccine candidate. Another 3.17 million Americans filed for unemployment last week.
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 3.7 million
- Global deaths: At least 264,111
- US cases: More than 1.2 million
- US deaths: At least 73,431
The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
10:24 am: Signs that non-emergency patients avoiding hospitals may have bottomed
Hospitals saw a decline of more than 60% in patient volumes in early April, due to the cancellation of non-emergency procedures, but analysts at Transunion say there are signs last month may have marked the bottom.
Payment data shows outpatient hospital visits rose 4% during the first two weeks of April, the modest bump marks the first increase in patient volumes since Covid-19 was declared a pandemic.
“We’re starting to see that tick back up because of the states opening up their economies, the shelter-in-place orders being lifted, and elective procedures start to be put back on the box,” said Jonathan Wiik, a principal in TransUnion’s health care strategy unit. He said it could take three months or more for hospitals to work through the backlog of delayed procedures and get back to normal non-Covid patient volumes.
Four out of 10 patients Transunion surveyed say they plan to reschedule procedures as soon as providers resume operations, while nearly one in four say they’ll wait until they believe the risk of contracting the coronavirus has passed. —Bertha Coombs
10:08 am: Colleges consider a tuition freeze amid pandemic
College of William and Mary
Will Pryce/Construction Photography/Avalon/Getty Images
As the economic strain on families worsens, some colleges have vowed to keep tuition for all students unchanged for the coming year.
The College of William & Mary, Delaware Valley University in Pennsylvania, Kansas City University and Central Michigan University, among other schools across the country, recently announced measures to freeze undergraduate tuition and fees.
Still, a tuition freeze may not be enough to entice students as financial concerns become paramount. A growing number of undergraduates are saying that remote learning is just not worth the cost. –Jessica Dickler
10:00 am: Reports of new cases spread in the East Coast
9:57 am: Trump administration shelves detailed CDC guide to reopening the country
A 17-page report created by a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention team with step-by-step advice to authorities on how and when to reopen restaurants and other public places was shelved by the Trump administration, the Associated Press reported.
The document was supposed to be published last Friday, but scientists were told the report “would never see the light of day,” a CDC official told AP. Generally, it is the CDC’s role to offer state and local officials guidance and science-based information during public health crises.
Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration chief and CNBC contributor Dr. Scott Gottlieb that the shelving of the report was ironic, saying, “Irony around CDC not issuing it’s reopen guidance, whatever the reason, is a lot of business literally can’t reopen without it because CDC is a de-facto regulator in a public health crisis. CDC must publish its umbrella document to publish more detailed industry specific guidance.” —Terri Cullen
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer and biotech company Illumina.
9:45 am: Nasdaq Composite turns positive for the year, Dow jumps 300 points
Stocks rose in early trading as investors bet on the U.S. economy reopening soon. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 304 points higher, or more than 1%. The S&P 500 gained 1.5% along with the Nasdaq Composite. The tech-heavy Nasdaq also turned positive for 2020.
Read updates on U.S. markets activity by CNBC’s Fred Imbert and Thomas Franck. —Melodie Warner
9:22 am: Curve of reported cases show signs of flattening
8:58 am: European airlines warn it could take years for demand to bounce back
IAG — the parent company of British Airways, Vueling and Iberia — and AirFrance-KLM withdrew their earnings forecasts for the year because of uncertainty about when travel will return to normal.
“We are planning for a meaningful return to service in July 2020 at the earliest, depending on the easing of lockdowns and travel restrictions around the world,” IAG CEO Willie Walsh said in a statement.
“However, we do not expect passenger demand to recover to the level of 2019 before 2023 at the earliest.”
AirFrance-KLM also warned that it will take “several years” to return to pre-coronavirus passenger demand.
Read more on AirFrance-KLM and IAG’s quarterly results from CNBC’s Silvia Amaro. —Melodie Warner
8:30 am: Another 3.17 million Americans file for unemployment
Another 3.17 million Americans filed initial claims for unemployment support last week, bringing the total number of claims across seven weeks to more than 33 million.
Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a tally of 3.05 million. Read more on the jobless claims data from CNBC’s Jeff Cox. —Sara Salinas
8:12 am: Kohl’s begins reopenings, on pace to have 25% of stores back by next week
Kohl’s announced it will reopen stores across an additional 10 states on Monday, having reopened already in four states — Arkansas, South Carolina, Utah and Oklahoma — earlier this week. CEO Michelle Gass said about 25% of Kohl’s stores will be open by next week if everything goes as planned.
Operating hours until further notice will be reduced to 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., the company said, and there will be dedicated shopping hours in place for at-risk individuals, including pregnant customers, each Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 11 a.m. to noon. The retailer will be shutting all fitting rooms until further notice.
Kohl’s also said it will still be accepting Amazon returns — a program it rolled out to all locations last year — in a separate part of each store.
Kohl’s joins a growing list of retailers including Macy’s, Nordstrom and Gap that are putting plans in place to get stores back up and running shutdowns in mid-March. It remains to be seen if shoppers are ready to get back. —Lauren Thomas
7:41 am: FDA approves Moderna vaccine for phase 2 study
The Food and Drug Administration approved a Covid-19 vaccine candidate from drugmaker Moderna to enter a phase 2 trial.
The trial will involve 600 participants and is a “crucial step” toward potential full clearance of a first batch as early as 2021, the company said. Shares of Moderna surged on the news.
Read more about Moderna’s announcement and forthcoming trial from CNBC’s Will Feuer. —Sara Salinas
6:20 am: German officials caution the crisis is not over yet
German officials have warned that the coronavirus crisis is not over yet, despite efforts to increasingly open up the economy and public life as the number of new infections trends downward.
“We are not living after the pandemic now — rather we are living in the middle of a pandemic, one that will be with us for a while — at least for this year and that’s being very optimistic,” Helge Braun, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff, told Deutschlandfunk radio, according to a Reuters report.
Germany has recorded 168,162 cases of the virus, and 7,275 deaths, far fewer fatalities than other Western European countries including France, Italy, Spain and the U.K.
Lars Schaade, vice president of the Robert Koch Institute, warned that it’s possible that the country could see a second wave of infections as restrictions are lifted and “when human behavior becomes relaxed again so that there is a higher number of transmissions.”
Germany started to lift restrictions several weeks ago, allowing smaller shops to reopen. Schools reopened earlier this week. Merkel has launched an “emergency brake” mechanism allowing for renewed restrictions in case infections pick up again. —Holly Ellyatt
Read CNBC’s coverage from CNBC’s Asia-Pacific and Europe teams overnight here: Russia posts record daily new cases, UK economy could shrink 14% this year
