Coronavirus updates: Fauci says contact tracing ‘not going well,’ Texas and Florida roll back reopening plans

The coverage on this live blog has ended.

The fallout from record numbers of cases and hospitalizations in some states continued Friday with Texas and Florida taking bigger steps to mitigate the spread of the disease. Texas reversed reopening plans, closing bars and capping restaurant capacity at 50%. Florida, which shattered its daily record for new cases once again, banned drinking at bars.

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 9.64 million
• Global deaths: At least 490,055
• U.S. cases: More than 2.42 million
• U.S. deaths: At least 124,468

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

6:32 p.m. ET — Representatives from the 27 European Union countries got closer to agreeing on a “safe list” of countries whose residents would be allowed to travel to the area beginning in July, but delayed a final decision, according to Reuters.

A list of 10-20 countries was set, but many countries said they had to check with their governments first, diplomats told Reuters. The list did not include the United States, Brazil or Russia, one diplomat said.

The EU countries are expected to give informal replies by Saturday evening.

A number of countries are in a worse situation with coronavirus than the European Union, based on recent European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control data. That list of countries includes the United States, Mexico, Brazil and much of Latin America, Russia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. —Chris Eudaily, Reuters

6 p.m. ET — California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a new website called safelymakingca.org that will connect manufacturers with businesses that need personal protective equipment like face masks.

“We’ve been in discussions for the last few months to talk about how we can encourage California manufacturers to retool their assembly lines to help meet the needs for these critical products,” Newsom said in a statement.

The announcement comes as the state has seen a 3.3% increase in coronavirus hospitalizations, according to Newsom. California has 201,290 confirmed coronavirus cases, according to the latest data from Johns Hopkins University. Newsom said the state will see death rates increase over the next two weeks and that young people are getting sick as well. —Hannah Miller

5:30 p.m. ET — The National Basketball Association and the National Basketball Players Association announced it finalized plans to resume its 2019-20 regular-season that was suspended due to Covid-19.

The league will send 22 teams to a bubble campus at Walt Disney World on July 30. Clubs will compete in eight seeding games, with the final 16 teams playing in the league’s traditional playoff format. The NBA Finals will not extend further than Oct. 13, according to the NBA.

The NBA became the first U.S. sports big league to suspend its season on March 11 due to the pandemic. —Jabari Young

4:45 p.m. ET — Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner, told CNBC that the growing spread of Covid-19 among younger people may have consequences for people of all ages. 

“The concern is, though, that you had so much infection at a community level in these states now that it is going to eventually seep back into older populations that are more susceptible the virus and you’re going to see death rates go back up,” Gottlieb said on “Closing Bell.”

“And we probably will see … the total number of deaths, go back up over the next two to three weeks.” In states such as Texas, Florida and Arizona, the average of people who are testing positive for Covid-19 is trending younger than earlier in the pandemic.

Gottlieb attributed this change to a likely shift in behavior, with older people taking increased precautions and avoiding high-risk settings such as bars. Gottlieb, a CNBC contributor who sits on the boards of Pfizer and biotech company Illumina, said many public health experts have been “surprised” by the “velocity of the spread and the level of infection” in some U.S. states. “But it is what it is right now. It’s going to be hard to extinguish,” he said. “These trends that are in motion right now are going to continue in motion for a couple of weeks.” —Kevin Stankiewicz

4:10 p.m. ET — New Jersey schools will open in the fall “in some capacity for in-person instruction” unless there is a change in public health data, Commissioner of Education Lamont Repollet wrote in a document titled “The Road Back.”

The state’s plans for reopening schools in fall were outlined in the 104-page document released by the New Jersey Department of Education.

Schools are expected to have a system in place for screening students and faculty for symptoms of the coronavirus, as well have set procedures for social distancing and cleaning. Under the guidance, school staff and visitors will be required to wear face coverings unless unable to do so.

Students will be strongly encouraged to wear face coverings, and required to do so when social distancing cannot be maintained, unless the student is unable to. Beyond the basic requirements listed, the state has tasked individual school districts to build specific plans for the fall. Schools must have restart plans that lay out procedures for issues such as social distancing on school buses and contact tracing. —Alex Harring

3:30 p.m. ET — San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in a tweet Friday that the city will temporarily delay its planned reopenings for Monday as the number of Covid-19 cases in California continue to climb. The city, which is reopening in phases, had previously announced that it would allow nail salons, barbershops, outdoor bars, museums and zoos to return on Monday.

“Yesterday we saw 103 cases. On June 15, when we first reopened outdoor dining and in-store retail, we had 20,” Breed wrote on Twitter. “At our current rate, the number could double rapidly. If that continues & we don’t intervene, we’ll be at such a high number that our only option would be to shut down.”

California is one of 35 states where cases were growing by 5% or more as of Thursday, based on the change in average new cases compared with last week, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. The state reported a near 44% increase in its weekly average of coronavirus cases, averaging 4,861 daily new cases.

3:05 p.m. ET — Nike CEO John Donahoe warned employees via email that layoffs were coming.

“We will soon be forced to make some difficult choices that will likely result in a net reduction of jobs,” the email said, according to Complex Magazine. 

After the coronavirus crisis closed most of its stores, Nike reported sales were down 38% with a net loss of $790 million in the fourth quarter, CNBC’s Jessica Golden reported.

While all stores are reopened now, the company is shifting resources and creating capacity to reinvest in its highest potential area and anticipates this realignment will cause a net loss of jobs, Nike said in a statement to CNBC. Layoffs are expected to occur in July and the fall. The company said store employees and distribution and manufacturing centers are not expected to be impacted by the layoffs. —Suzanne Blake

2:45 p.m. ET — As more young people become infected with Covid-19 in states with increasing case numbers, they may not be at risk of serious illness but could infect someone who is, members of the White House coronavirus task force warned on Friday. “People are infecting other people and ultimately you will infect someone who’s vulnerable,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a press briefing.

Vice President Mike Pence said that there are 16 states reporting a rise in the total number of cases and the percent of tests coming back positive. Roughly half of the new cases are Americans under the age of 35, which is “at a certain level very encouraging news” because experts say that younger people are less susceptible to serious illness from the virus, Pence said.

However, Fauci added that the risk of serious illness from coronavirus is not isolated to just one person. “Because if you get infected you are part, innocently or inadvertently, of propagating the dynamic process of a pandemic,” he said. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, added that the coronavirus poses a greater risk to those with underlying health conditions, such diabetes and significant obesity, which spans every age group. —Noah Higgins-Dunn

2:30 p.m. ET — Among methods to curb the spread of the coronavirus, contact tracing is “not going well,” according to White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci. Contact tracing involves trained personnel who contact people infected with the coronavirus to learn where they might have caught it and who they may have exposed to it, CNBC’s Will Feuer reports.

The White House advised states to not reopen without the ability to conduct widespread testing and contact tracing. Fauci said the U.S. needs to think on “the idea of many more tests getting into the community and even pooling tests.”

Fauci also said that as coronavirus cases spike in places like the American South and West, the U.S. will soon “be seeing more deaths.” “Even though the deaths are coming down as a country, that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to start seeing them coming up now,” Fauci said. —Hannah Miller

2:05 p.m. — Albertsons has gotten a bounce from grocery shopping trends during the pandemic. That doesn’t mean Wall Street greeted the company with open arms.

The grocery store operator began trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange at $16 per share, below below its $18-$20 target range. Its shares were down by about 1% in Friday afternoon trading. CEO Vivek Sankaran told CNBC on Friday that Albertsons said the drop in price reflects the volatility of the market, not the strength of the company.

“It’s so hard to predict what’s happening in the market anymore,” he said. “It’s so different from the beginning of the week to the end of the week, but we are just proud that in this extremely difficult environment, in the middle of a pandemic, we were able to IPO the company.” He said the company is focused the long-term and committed to providing fresh foods to customers, whether they shop online or in stores. –Melissa Repko

1:45 p.m. ET — Florida banned drinking at bars on Friday, after the state reported 8,942 new cases, shattering the previous record single-day spike of 5,508 reported on Wednesday.

The decision on bars, which is “effective immediately,” was announced on Twitter by Halsey Beshears, the secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office confirmed the decision to CNBC.

Bars in Florida were closed for months as part of the shut down meant to curb the spread of the virus. DeSantis allowed bars to reopen with some modifications earlier this month, but amid the recent surge in new cases, the state will now limit bar service to take-out only. DeSantis has previously attributed the surge in new cases to younger people congregating at places like bars. —William Feuer

1:30 p.m. ET — More states are requiring residents to wear masks in public, with Washington, North Carolina and Nevada being the latest to introduce mandates this week.

The measures come as a growing number of states report surges in coronavirus cases, and politicians debate whether requiring masks is a reasonable measure. The CDC recommends wearing face coverings in public in order to help curb the virus’ spread.

However, in the absence of a federal order, twelve states, including New York, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Mexico, have mandated that face coverings be worn in public.

Other states have stopped just short of requiring masks in all public places, but have made face coverings mandatory in a range of settings. Some local governments in towns and counties have even introduced their own mask measures in the lack of a statewide requirement.

As states pause reopening measures and even re-introduce restrictions, mask requirements have the potential to become more common throughout the country. —Hannah Miller

1:06 p.m. ET — President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a scheduled visit to New Jersey this weekend, a move that came days after the White House said the trip would go forward despite a new coronavirus quarantine edict issued by Gov. Phil Murphy.

The White House did not say why Trump pulled the plug on the visit to his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. but a spokesman did say the cancellation had “nothing to do” with Murphy’s order requiring visitors who have been in states with large numbers of Covid-19 cases to quarantine for two weeks.

Murphy had said earlier Friday that his mandate would not apply to Trump, who on Tuesday visited Arizona, a state that is dealing with a marked uptick in coronavirus cases.

“By any definition the president of the United States is an essential worker,” Murphy said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” —Dan Mangan

12:34 p.m. ET — Some people in the U.S. are thinking of coronavirus precautions as an “all or none phenomenon” rather than trying to incorporate mask wearing and social distancing into their everyday lives, White House health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci said.

“The people who’ve been pent up in those places, they’re looking at it as an all or none phenomenon,” Fauci said in an interview with CNBC’s Meg Tirrell. “Either we’re locked down or let’s storm the bars, go to the beach, no masks. That’s the problem.”

State officials need to focus on reopening in a “stepwise fashion” to prevent outbreaks like those the country is currently seeing in Florida, Texas and elsewhere.

“If you go from lockdown to complete caution to the wind, you’re going to get into trouble,” he said. —Will Feuer

11:52 a.m. ET — A JPMorgan study found that increased restaurant spending in a state predicted a rise in new infections there three weeks later.

Analyst Jesse Edgerton analyzed data from 30 million Chase credit and debit card holders and from Johns Hopkins University’s case tracker. He said in-person restaurant spending was “particularly predictive.”

On the flip side, higher spending at supermarkets appears to predict a slower spread of the virus, suggesting that states that buy more groceries are more mindful of social distancing measures. —Amelia Lucas

11:20 a.m. ET — The nation’s seven-day average of new Covid-19 cases reached a record high of more than 33,000 cases on Thursday, a rise of more than 38% compared with a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data.

Cases were growing by 5% or more, based on the change in average new cases compared to last week, in 35 states across the country, including California, Florida, Georgia, Texas and Nevada. While the rise in daily case numbers could reflect increased testing in certain locations, some states are reporting higher positivity rates. The positivity rate indicates the percentage of tests that come back positive in a specific region.

Texas’ positivity rate has exceeded 10%, which is a level that raises a “warning flag,” according to Gov. Greg Abbott. Arizona’s rate is also averaging above 10%, according to the state’s department of health. Hospitalizations from Covid-19 were growing in 15 states as of Thursday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project. —Noah Higgins-Dunn

10:59 a.m. ET — American Airlines said it will be resuming full-capacity flights starting July 1. The airline currently has a 70% capacity limit on flights amid the coronavirus pandemic.

American also said passengers will have to complete a Covid-19 questionnaire prior to boarding its flights and confirm they have not experienced symptoms of the virus in the past 14 days.

The airline will continue to notify passengers if their flights are full and allow them to switch to a less-crowded plane without paying an additional fee.

The CEOs of major airlines, including American, are expected to meet with Vice President Mike Pence today to discuss coronavirus-related travel issues. —Hannah Miller

10:52 a.m. ET — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he will roll back some of the state’s reopening, only a day after he said he would place the state’s reopening plan on pause.

All bars and similar establishments that receive more than 51% of their gross receipts from the sale of alcoholic beverages are required to close by 12 p.m. Friday, according to the order. Rafting and tubing businesses must close and outdoor gatherings of 100 or more people must be approved by local governments, with certain exceptions.

Restaurants may remain open for dine-in service, but at capacity not to exceed 50% of total listed indoor occupancy, beginning Monday.

“As I said from the start, if the positivity rate rose above 10%, the State of Texas would take further action to mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” Abbott said in a press release. “At this time, it is clear that the rise in cases is largely driven by certain types of activities, including Texans congregating in bars.”

Texas reported a 79% increase in its weekly average of coronavirus cases on Thursday, averaging 4,757 daily new cases, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. —Noah Higgins-Dunn

10:10 a.m. ET — New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told CNBC he believes that K-12 schools in the state will hold in-person instruction this fall. But he cautioned that the coronavirus situation in the state could change in the coming months, complicating return-to-the-classroom plans.

“So with that big caveat, two months out, I believe we will be back in school. It will be a new normal. There will be protocols in place that had not been in place before,” Murphy said on “Squawk Box.”

New Jersey, which has seen its daily cases of Covid-19 fall dramatically since its April peak, announced plans last week for colleges and universities to restart on-campus class. Schools have to submit plans to the state Office of the Secretary of Higher Education at least 14 days before they intend to restart. —Kevin Stankiewicz

9:27 a.m. ET — Robert Lambkin-Williams, an independent virologist at Virology Consult, told CNBC there is no clear evidence antibodies produced to fight off the coronavirus gave people any protection against being reinfected.

“That’s important because we don’t know if the vaccines that encourage those antibodies to be produced are going to work,” he said. Even if antibodies did prevent reinfection, a preliminary vaccine against the disease would not eliminate the pandemic, Lambkin-Williams added.

“The vaccine is not going to be a cure-all. We have not had a successful vaccine against this type of virus ever,” he said. “We will get a vaccine of some description in the next couple of years, but it will not be perfect and it will need to be developed going forward.” Lambkin-Williams urged the public to adhere to guidelines on how to reduce transmission of the virus, such as wearing face coverings and practicing good hand hygiene. —Chloe Taylor

8:48 a.m. ET — U.S. consumer spending in May rebounded sharply, despite a decline in personal income, according to data from the Commerce Department. 

Consumer spending jumped 8.2% last month, after sinking 12.6% in April. Personal income in May, though, fell 4.2% and is expected to fall further as millions of Americans remain unemployed amid the pandemic. —Sara Salinas

8:26 a.m. ET — Thirty-five states have adopted Salesforce platform Work.com to deploy contract tracing as a way to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told CNBC’s Jim Cramer.

The platform was originally launched in May to help businesses survey employees and organize shifts to keep workers as healthy as possible. Now it’s used by companies and entire states, Benioff said.

Benioff called the platform “critical technology” because it allows for communication with sick people to know whom they were in contact with and slow the spread of Covid-19. —Alex Harring

8:18 a.m. ET — The number of active mortgage forbearance plans rose by 79,000 in the past week, according to Black Knight, a mortgage data and technology firm, after three straight weeks of declines.

The recent increase in mortgage bailouts erased around half of the improvement in numbers since the peak of May 22, CNBC’s Diana Olick reports. As of Tuesday, 4.68 million homeowners were in forbearance plans, which is 8.8% of all active mortgages, up from 8.7% last week.

These plans allow homeowners to delay mortgage payments for at least three months. The surge indicates continuing struggles of homeowners amid the pandemic. —Suzanne Blake

8:11 a.m. ET — As cases of the coronavirus spike in major cities in the United States, some alternative data sources that track hourly employees show that the jobs recovery may be slowing.

Data from Homebase, a scheduling firm that works with many small and medium-sized businesses in the service sector, shows that employment may have declined over the past week in some areas, with fewer employees working on June 24 than the average from June 15-19 in the majority of states.

The Homebase data is not a representative sample of the U.S. labor force, but it does mirror the weekly jobless claims data, which showed that another 1.48 million people filed for unemployment last week for the first time. —Jesse Pound

8:08 a.m. ET — Unions representing tens of thousands of airline employees want $32 billion in additional government aid to maintain their jobs through the end of March.

While air travel is now higher than the more-than-five-decade lows hit in April, demand continues to suffer because of coronavirus.

Airlines received the aid under the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March on the condition they wouldn’t lay off workers through Oct. 1. An additional $32 billion could save jobs through the end of March, the labor unions said. Congress is likely to begin negotiations on the next major coronavirus relief bill in July. —Leslie Josephs, Lauren Hirsch

7:14 a.m. ET — Russia reported its lowest daily rise of new infections since late April, Reuters reported, as the tally of Covid-19 cases climbed by 6,800 to 620,794.

The country’s coronavirus response center said this was the first time Russia had reported fewer than 7,000 new cases over a 24-hour period since late April.

To date, Russia has reported the third-highest number of infections, behind only the U.S. and Brazil, respectively. —Sam Meredith

7:11 a.m. ET — Presumptive Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden said he would require that Americans wear masks nationwide if he were president.

“The one thing we do know is these masks make a gigantic difference,” he said while wearing a mask during a taped interview with KDKA in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

“I would insist that everybody out in public be wearing that mask. Anyone to reopen would have to make sure that they walked into a business that had masks.”

Asked specifically whether he would use executive authority to mandate masks, Biden responded, “Yes. Yes, I would.”

“I would do everything possible to make it required that people had to wear masks in public,” he said.

Biden’s stance on masks as an effective public health intervention stands in stark contrast to that of President Donald Trump, who has avoided appearing in public with a mask and has said that he thinks some people wear masks to signal disapproval of him. —Will Feuer

Read CNBC’s previous coronavirus live coverage here: Texas and Florida pause reopening more business as cases surge