Coronavirus live updates: Details of massive stimulus bill emerge as US cases top 46,000

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 398,000
• Global deaths: At least 17,000
• US cases: At least 46,500
• US deaths: At least 590

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University. 

The U.K. government appealed for 250,000 “people in good health” to help its health service cope with the coronavirus outbreak.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock also said that final year medical students and student nurses would be moved to the National Health Service’s (NHS) “front line.”

“We are seeking a quarter of a million volunteers, people in good health, to help the NHS, for shopping, for delivery of medicines and to support those who are shielded to protect their own health,” Hancock told reporters. —Katrina Bishop, Ryan Browne

Not even a month ago, thousands of borrowers were rushing to take advantage of record-low mortgage rates. Refinance applications soared over 400% annually, and homebuyers were out early and in force.

But now some of those loans are stuck in limbo as the in-person closing process can no longer be held.

Across the nation, state, county and local governments, including recording offices, have shut down or are at least limiting the number of people who may enter the office.

That puts the whole system at risk, as title insurers are less able to conduct the title research that goes into issuing a policy. The ability to record documents is also getting tougher as county recording offices close. —Diana Olick

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed back hard against the idea raised by President Donald Trump of easing restrictions from coronavirus mitigation efforts in an effort to revive the U.S. economy.

“I understand what the president is saying that this is unsustainable that we close down the economy and we continue to spend money. There is no doubt about that,” Cuomo said at a press conference in New York City.

“But if you ask the American people to choose between public health and the economy then it’s no contest. No American is going to say ‘accelerate the economy at the cost of human life,'” Cuomo argued. —Dan Mangan

More businesses in Washington, D.C. are closing to help curb the coronavirus outbreak. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced Tuesday that salons, barbershops and other services not related to emergency response will be shut down. The city previously closed schools, museums, libraries, fitness centers and other businesses. 

More states are ordering residents to stay at home during the coronavirus crisis, as the COVID-19 outbreak worsens in the U.S. 

A total of 13 states currently have orders to stay at home, including California, New York, Washington State and Illinois. Three states have advisories or instructions from their governors to remain at home. Four states have either cities or counties with stay-at-home orders. —Hannah Miller

Borrowers with federal student loans now have two options for relief if they suffer financial hardship from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Department of Education announced that all borrowers with federal loans will have their interest rates automatically set at 0% for at least 60 days, a measure first announced by President Donald Trump earlier this month. Now, borrowers with federal loans have the option to suspend payments completely for at least two months without accruing interest.

While the interest rate reduction is automatic, borrowers need to request the suspension of payment, called a forbearance, from their loan servicers online or by phone. This can help free up cash for other bills or financial obligations during the coronavirus crisis. —Alicia Adamczyk

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the hardware supply chain is coming back online as the coronavirus outbreak eases up in Asia, but said that the big question would be whether demand holds up in the U.S. and Europe.

“On the supply side we are getting back on rails,” Nadella told CNBC’s Jon Fortt when asked about whether Microsoft would be able to deliver later this year certain products it had promised before COVID-19 took hold, like new Surface devices and a revamped Xbox gaming console.

“We have a great balance sheet, we are a very diverse business, we have a mix of annuity, non-annuity, that is also stronger than even the last time we even went into the financial crisis,” he said. “I feel confident we’ll come out of this, frankly, pretty strong.”

He said the company’s cloud infrastructure and services have been holding up under increased demand. —Jordan Novet

As Republicans and Democrats forged ahead toward a deal on a massive economic stimulus proposal to combat the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, details of the developing proposal started to emerge. 

Here are some of the top components of the plan as it stood Tuesday morning, according to congressional leaders:

• Cash payments of up to $2,400 for married couples and $500 per child
• A $350 billion fund for small businesses to mitigate layoffs and support payroll
• $240 billion in health care relief
• $75 billion in aid for hospitals

Senate Democrats struck down the bill in a procedural vote on Monday amid a gulf in what both parties wanted to include in it. But they made progress by Tuesday morning, as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the sides were at “the 2-yard line.” —Jacob Pramuk, Yelena Dzhanova

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said that the coffee chain believes the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. is following a comparable path to what happened in China. 

“It may be that in the United States it’s a little bit longer, a week or two longer period to see the recovery. It may be the same recovery, but right now it’s tracking in a very similar way to China,” Johnson said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.”

Johnson said Starbucks built a model to follow the company’s business recovery in China, where the coronavirus pandemic began in late December. “It’s now like week three here in the U.S. and we look back at what happened in China and we sort of know what to expect,” Johnson said. —Kevin Stankiewicz

Most of America’s department stores are sitting dark. 

Macy’s, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom and Kohl’s have closed their shops across the U.S. temporarily, to try to help halt the spread of COVID-19. Many specialty shops found in the mall, such as American Eagle and Gap, have also closed up. Some mall owners, including the biggest in the U.S., Simon Property Group, have shut all of their properties for the time being. 

But there is still at least one department store chain keeping its doors open: Dillard’s.

CNBC spoke to multiple employees, one of which said they were “begging” for the company to close. The workers all requested anonymity to protect their jobs. —Lauren Thomas

President Donald Trump and his top economic aide Larry Kudlow suggested that a massive coronavirus stimulus bill could provide the foundation for an economic revival in the United States.

“Our people want to return to work,” Trump tweeted. “They will practice Social Distancing and all else, and Seniors will be watched over protectively & lovingly. We can do two things together.”

Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, echoed Trump’s remarks from a Monday evening press briefing that some states with low numbers of confirmed cases might be able to ease off their restrictions quickly. That relief could come soon after the White House’s 15-day guidelines on social distancing expire next week, Kudlow said. —Kevin Breuninger

Ford announced it will partner with 3M and GE Healthcare to begin producing face masks and ventilators to help fill potential shortages caused by the coronavirus. 

Ford will work with 3M to manufacture a newly designed respirator and boost production of 3M’s powered air-purifying respirator, which uses a blower instead of lung power to draw air through the filter. Ford said unionized employees will be able to manufacture the new respirators. 

Ford and GE Healthcare will begin manufacturing a “simplified version of GE Healthcare’s existing ventilator design” to aid patients who may experience trouble breathing caused by COVID-19. —Noah Higgins-Dunn

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a “total lockdown” in the country of 1.3 billion people during a televised address, the most extensive stay-at-home order yet in the world’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The 21-day lockdown was set to begin at midnight.

“To save India and every Indian, there will be a total ban on venturing out of your homes,” Modi said, adding that if the county failed to manage the next 21 days, it would be set back by 21 years. —Associated Press

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said a “troubling and astronomical” number of coronavirus cases have increased the urgency across the state for more hospital beds as the pace of new infections rises at a rapid clip. Cases soared across the state to 25,665, Cuomo said. 

“We’re not slowing it and it is accelerating on its own,” Cuomo said at a press conference. He said the state is now projecting it will need more hospital beds and a lot sooner than previously thought. The state now estimates it will need 140,000 hospital beds, up from previous projections of 110,000. “That apex could be, they project, 14 to 21 days away.” —Wiliam Feuer, Berkeley Lovelace Jr., Noah Higgins-Dunn

The Trump administration plans to use the Defense Production Act for the first time during this coronavirus pandemic to procure thousands of COVID-19 test kits as the disease continues its spread across the country.

Peter Gaynor, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, told CNN that the administration had decided to use the Defense Production Act to acquire some 60,000 kits. The FEMA chief added that the White House will add “DPA language” into its mass contract for 500 million masks. —Thomas Franck

The number of coronavirus cases in Italy is probably 10 times higher than the official tally, the head of the agency collating the data said as the government readied new measures to force people to stay at home.

“A ratio of one certified case out of every 10 is credible,” Angelo Borrelli, the head of the Civil Protection Agency, told La Repubblica newspaper, indicating he believed as many as 640,000 people could have been infected.

Italy has seen more fatalities than any other country, with latest figures showing that 6,077 people have died from the infection in barely a month, while the number of confirmed cases has hit 64,000. However, testing for the disease has often been limited to people seeking hospital care, meaning that thousands of infections have certainly gone undetected. —Reuters

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham issued “stay-at-home” instructions late Monday, to take effect Tuesday. Residents should remain in their homes except for outings absolutely necessary for health, safety and welfare, Grisham said in a statement.

New Mexico Secretary of Health Kathy Kunkel also issued an order closing all non-essential businesses. The public health emergency order requires 100% of the state’s non-essential workforce to work from home. It is in effect until April 10. Essential businesses that are allowed to remain open include health-care operations, homeless shelters and grocery stores. —Hannah Miller

Two of the largest private labs in the U.S. will collectively be able to process more than 300,000 COVID-19 tests by the end of the week, their CEOs say. LabCorp CEO Adam Schechter told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” the company is processing around 20,000 tests daily and will by the end of the week be able to “a lot more” than 100,000 tests per week. 

Quest Diagnostics is conducting about 25,000 COVID-19 tests per day, with plans of increasing daily capacity to around 30,000 by the end of the week, CEO Steve Rusckowski told CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” That would put Quest’s weekly capacity around 200,000, he said. —Kevin Stankiewicz

Stocks jumped on Tuesday as investors hoped U.S. lawmakers were close to an agreement on a stimulus bill to rescue the economy from the coronavirus.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded more than 1,300 points higher, or 7.1%. The S&P 500 gained 6.2% while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 5.7%. —Fred Imbert, Thomas Franck

The International Olympic Committee postponed the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, officials announced Tuesday. The event was scheduled to start July 24 in Tokyo.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he and the head of the IOC agreed to delay the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo for about a year. The games will take place “no later than summer 2021,” according to a statement from the IOC.

Abe was speaking to reporters after a phone call with IOC President Thomas Bach on postponing the Games amid growing concerns over the coronavirus pandemic.

Tokyo had completed preparations when the virus started spreading across the world. Despite insisting for months the Games would go ahead as planned, Abe this week said a delay may be unavoidable if all the events could not be held. —Jabari Young, Reuters

Gilead Sciences’ experimental drug remdesivir, seen as one of the more promising potential treatments for the coronavirus, received the orphan drug designation on Monday from the Food and Drug Administration. The announcement comes days after President Donald Trump called on the FDA to streamline its approval process for treatments such as remdesivir, which is currently being tested in clinical trials, with results expected as early as next month. The orphan drug status provides a seven-year market exclusivity period, as well as tax and other incentives for drug companies developing treatments for rare diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people. —Reuters

Two months after Chinese authorities locked down the city at the center of the outbreak, the end is in sight. Hubei province said that travel restrictions on the capital city of Wuhan will be removed starting April 8, which would end a lockdown that began on Jan. 23. New confirmed virus cases in China have dwindled in the last several days, with nearly all now attributed to travelers returning from overseas. —Evelyn Cheng

Italy’s death toll rose by 602, the smallest increase in four days, according to Reuters. The number of new confirmed cases also slowed. These figures have raised expectations that the worse could be over for the country with the highest number of deaths from the virus worldwide. However, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said Italy had not yet reached the “most acute phase” of the infection.

Conte stepped up the national lockdown measures over the weekend, ordering the closure of all industrial production and almost all private and public offices. However, metalworkers and bank unions vowed to strike this week. They are demanding more stringent measures for the factories that are still open and for bank employees, who they say do not have enough masks, gloves or disinfectant. —Silvia Amaro

The number of new cases in Spain jumped Tuesday to 39,673 from 33,089 cases registered on Monday, the health ministry reported. The number of fatalities rose to 2,696 overnight from 2,182, the ministry said. —Reuters

The euro zone economy suffered “an unprecedented collapse” in business activity in March as the coronavirus outbreak intensified, according to provisional purchasing manager’s index survey data from IHS Markit. The data showed that the “flash” euro zone composite PMI collapsed from 51.6 in February to 31.4 in March. The survey measures business activity in the services and manufacturing sector in the 19-member euro zone.  A reading below 50 indicates a contraction. This is the largest monthly fall in business activity since comparable data were first collected in July 1998. The prior low was seen in February 2009, when the index hit 36.2. —Holly Ellyatt

Indonesia reported an additional 107 cases, marking the biggest daily increase for the Southeast Asian nation. It takes the country’s total number of COVID-19 infections to 686. Seven further deaths from the virus in the last 24 hours means the nationwide death toll now stands at 55. —Sam Meredith

The U.K. government has tightened restrictions on the British public. As of Tuesday morning, all nonessential public buildings and places are closed, ranging from libraries to churches, outdoor gyms and playgrounds, and all social events including weddings and baptisms have been stopped. The public has been told to stay at home and can now only leave home for essential trips to buy food or medicines, to provide essential care, travel to work if absolutely necessary or to exercise once a day. —Holly Ellyatt

Read CNBC’s coverage from CNBC’s Asia-Pacific and Europe teams overnight here: Britain goes into lockdown; global cases surpass 382,000