Coronavirus live updates: Germany could extend lockdown to May 3; Russia sees another jump in cases

This is CNBC’s live blog covering all the latest news on the coronavirus outbreak. This blog will be updated throughout the day as the news breaks.

• Global cases: More than 1.97 million
• Global deaths: At least 125,678
• Most cases reported: United States (602,989), Spain (172,541), Italy (162,488), France (131,361), Germany (131,359)

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University as of 7:43 a.m. Beijing time. 

All times below are in Beijing time.

The death toll from the coronavirus has risen to 18,579 on Wednesday, up from 18,056 the day before, Spain’s health ministry said Wednesday. That’s a daily increase of 523 deaths, down from 567 deaths reported the previous day. On Monday, 517 new deaths had been reported.

The total number of confirmed cases in Spain has now reached 177, 633.— Holly Ellyatt

Germany will extend restrictions on movement introduced last month to slow the spread of the coronavirus until at least May 3, Handelsblatt business daily reported Wednesday, citing the country’s DPA news agency.

Chancellor Angela Merkel is holding a video conference on Wednesday with cabinet ministers, and later with the leaders of Germany’s 16 states, Reuters reported.  Officials are set to discuss whether to ease lockdown measures given Germany’s improving coronavirus data. — Holly Ellyatt

Russia reported a record daily rise in new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, of 3,388. The total number of cases now stands at 24,490, the country’s coronavirus response center said Wednesday.

There was a rise of 28 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of fatalities to 198. — Holly Ellyatt

European markets traded lower on Wednesday, despite the region starting to lift restrictive measures in various countries to allow the economies to gradually restart.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 fell 1% in early deals, with oil and gas stocks sliding 3.4% to lead losses while the food and beverages sector bucked the downward trend to add 0.7%. — Elliot Smith and Holly Ellyatt

The number of new confirmed cases in Germany jumped by 2,486 to a total of 127,584, according to data from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.

The number of additional fatalities rose by 285 to a total of 3,254. — Weizhen Tan

An increasing number of countries could default on their debt in the coming 12-18 months as governments globally increase spending to limit the economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic, an economist said on Wednesday.

“I do think we will see some issues there, possibly we could see a euro zone crisis come back with countries like Greece or Italy … likely to be at the center of that,” Simon Baptist, global chief economist at consultancy The Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC’s “Capital Connection.”

“Across the emerging world, I’ll pick out countries like South Africa and Brazil as being likely to suffer a further crisis as a result of this,” he added. “And, of course, Argentina has effectively gone back into sovereign default already.” — Yen Nee Lee

The world cannot allow India to become the next coronavirus epicenter, said the World Bank’s country director for India, Junaid Ahmad.

The number of reported cases in India has climbed despite efforts from the government to keep people indoors since late March. Data posted on the health ministry’s website showed 11,439 confirmed cases of infection as of April 15, 8 a.m. local time; 1,305 patients have been discharged, while 377 people have died.

“Under no circumstances can the world, the region, or India, allow an epicenter to emerge in India. I think that the whole approach of a lockdown nationally and to really push on the health side has been very important,” Ahmad said.

India watchers have argued that the country’s health-care infrastructure is not equipped to handle the kind of outbreak seen in the United States or in several Western European countries like Spain and Italy. — Saheli Roy Choudhury

Turkey is on shaky ground and its currency depreciating as controversial monetary moves and fast-rising coronavirus cases threaten to plunge an already fragile economy into much more danger. 

The country of 82 million is one of the few in Europe that hasn’t implemented a mandatory nationwide lockdown, something its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has so far avoided in hopes of shielding the economy. But after nearly two years of a weakening currency, high debt, dwindling foreign reserves and growing unemployment, Turkey is in a particularly bad place to weather a pandemic, experts say.

Turkey began registering more than 3,000 new coronavirus cases per day after April 4 and has reported more than 4,000 per day since April 8, a sudden surge that’s alarmed health experts. — Natasha Turak 

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has estimated 850,000 people will become seriously ill from the coronavirus disease — and 49% of them may die — if the country doesn’t take measures to limit the spread of the virus, reported Nikkei Asian Review. 

The Japanese government has declared a state of emergency and urged citizens to limit their interactions with one another to slow the spread of Covid-19.

The country reported 7,645 confirmed cases as of Tuesday noon, according to data by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Of those, 853 have been discharged from hospitals and 109 have died, the data showed. — Yen Nee Lee

The escalating coronavirus pandemic has ushered in a new era of stock market volatility, as investors come to terms with consecutive history-making daily swings. But it has also shone a spotlight on a promising investment opportunity — one that’s been winning the hearts of millennials. 

Sustainable investments — those focused on companies with strong environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) principles — outperformed their conventional counterparts in the first quarter of 2020, even as the outbreak sent markets crashing.

In the first three months of the year, 70% of sustainable equity funds recorded returns in the top halves of their broad-based peer group, according to investment research firm Morningstar. Of those, 44% scored within the top quartile. When the full extent of the pandemic became clear in early March, ESG-aware companies outperformed other stocks by up to 5.7%, HSBC found. — Karen Gilchrist

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, along with government ministers and public service chief executives, will take a 20% pay cut for the next six months, reported Reuters. 

Ardern said in a news conference that the move was recognition of “New Zealanders who are reliant on wage subsidies, taking a pay cut, and losing their jobs as a result of the global pandemic,” according to the report. 

New Zealand has reported 1,078 confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease, of which nine have died, according to its Ministry of Health. 

The government has implemented lockdown measures that include closing down offices and schools. It said it plans to decide on April 20 whether to extend those measures. — Yen Nee Lee

For many Chinese companies, their dreams of listing in New York are only on hold.

Some high-profile Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. such as Luckin Coffee, the self-proclaimed Starbucks rival in China, have been rocked following allegations by short-sellers that these companies faked their numbers, accusations that in some cases are now being internally investigated.

The reports are the latest challenge for Chinese initial public offerings in New York, on top of U.S.-China trade tensions and the impact of the coronavirus. 

But some in the cross-border IPO business say the listing plans are just delayed, not canceled. — Evelyn Cheng

South Korea reported another 27 cases of the coronavirus and three additional deaths, according to the latest data from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That bring the country’s total confirmed cases to 10,591 and fatalities to 225 since the outbreak, said KCDC.

South Korea holds legislative elections on Wednesday under strict safety guidelines. Some 14,000 polling stations around the country were disinfected before allowing voters to enter, reported Reuters. Voters are also required to wear a mask and have their temperatures checked upon arrival at their polling stations, said the report. — Yen Nee Lee

Guterres referred to comments he had made on April 8 where he said the pandemic remains one of the most dangerous challenges the world has ever faced, describing it as a “human crisis with severe health and socio-economic consequences.”

He said that when the outbreak is under control, there “must be a time to look back fully to understand how such a disease emerged and spread its devastation so quickly across the globe, and how all those involved reacted to the crisis.”

“But now is not that time,” Guterres said.

“It is also not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus,” he added, and called on the international community to work together to stop the virus. — Saheli Roy Choudhury

China’s National Health Commission said there were 46 additional cases of infection, of which 36 were attributed to travelers from overseas. Most of the travelers are likely Chinese nationals since China closed its borders to most foreigners late last month. The official report did not specify their nationalities.

There was one death reported in Hubei province. China also said there were 57 new cases of asymptomatic infections, where a person tests positive for the virus but does not demonstrate any of the usual symptoms associated with it. 

A total of 82,295 confirmed cases have been reported by China and 3,342 people have died since the outbreak started. — Saheli Roy Choudhury

Major League Baseball says 27 teams will participate in an antibody testing study with Stanford University and the University of Southern California.

The test used in the study is not diagnostic and not the same test used in healthcare settings to identify the presence of the virus. Rather, it measures whether people have been exposed. The study will use rapid antibody tests, the league confirmed to CNBC. The Athletic previously reported that 10,000 employees from those teams have volunteered to participate.

The goal of the study is to get a sense of the prevalence of Covid-19 infections among the U.S. population in hopes of helping researchers figure out how many people might have been exposed but suffered no symptoms. That information could help public officials determine when it’s safe to ease up on restrictions meant to curb the spread of the pandemic. — Jennifer Elias

At least 125,678 people around the world have succumbed to the coronavirus that was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. That’s according to the latest information from Johns Hopkins University. 

Hopkins data also showed the virus has infected more than 1.97 million people. The United States has the highest number of cases, with more than 600,000 patients.

Spain, Italy, France and Germany, with at least 130,000 cases in each of the European countries. The United Kingdom also reported a high number of cases — with reported cases climbing to over 94,000 and fatalities topping 12,100. — Saheli Roy Choudhury

Singapore’s health ministry said as of 14 April noon, there were 334 new confirmed cases of Covid-19. Many of them are linked to infection clusters in dormitories that house foreign workers.

The inhabitants of those dormitories are typically men from other Asian countries who carry out labor-intensive construction jobs in order to support their families back home. 

The city-state reported its highest single-day jump in cases a day earlier when there were 386 additional cases.

There have been 3,252 confirmed cases since the start of the outbreak; 611 patients have been cured and discharged from hospitals and community isolation facilities and 10 people in Singapore have succumbed to the illness. — Saheli Roy Choudhury, Ted Kemp

All times below are in Eastern time.

President Donald Trump said that he believes some states will be able to lift the strict social distancing measures that have strained their economies before the end of April.

“The plans to reopen the country are close to being finalized,” Trump said at a press briefing on the virus in the Rose Garden.

“I will be speaking to all 50 governors very shortly,” Trump said, “And I will then be authorizing each individual governor of each individual state to implement a reopening and a very powerful reopening plan of their state at a time and in a manner as most appropriate.”

“The day will be very close because certain states as you know are in a much different condition and are in a much different place than other states. It’s going to be very very close. Maybe even before the date of May 1st,” he said. — Kevin Breuninger

The Trump administration will halt funding to the World Health Organization as it evaluates the agency’s “role in severely mismanaging” the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump announced.

“Today I’m instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” Trump said at a press conference.

Trump criticized the international agency’s response to the outbreak, saying “one of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations.” — Berkeley Lovelace Jr., Noah Higgins-Dunn