Hospitalization rise in some states

The number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues to rise in U.S. states that were among the first and most aggressive to reopen, leading some local officials to reconsider reopening plans. In Oregon, Gov. Kate Brown announced a 7-day statewide pause on further reopening as health officials study the data and try to contain budding outbreaks.

In Arizona, however, Gov. Doug Ducey tried to reassure people that the rise in confirmed cases was expected and that the state’s hospitals have the capacity to handle a further surge. 

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 7.55 million
• Global deaths: At least 422,544
• U.S. cases: More than 2.02 million
• U.S. deaths: At least 114,066

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

5:46 p.m. — Major League Baseball officially presented another economic plan to players’ union, as it hopes to resume its operations suspended by Covid-19 on July 14.

According to a person familiar with negotiations, MLB has issued a plan that calls for a 72-game regular-season scheduled to begin on July 14, with players earning 70% of their prorated salaries.

The salaries can increase to 80% if there is a postseason, bringing the players’ revenue to more than $1 billion and an additional to $200 million if the league completes its postseason the individual confirmed.

According to the individual, the proposal does include a Sunday, June 14 deadline for the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) to accept the offer. —Jabari Young

5:30 p.m. ET — Wyndham Hotels and Resorts CEO Geoff Ballotti said the company’s hotels are once again welcoming “the everyday traveler” amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re starting to see leisure travel return,” Ballotti told CNBC’s “Closing Bell.” “It’s people who want to get out of the house, people who want to see family and friends.” He said Wyndham’s economy hotels are at over 50% occupancy, while mid-scale occupancy is over 40%.

Mom-and-pop hotel operators can “break even” at around 30% to 40% occupancy, according to Ballotti. Even with eight consecutive weeks of rising occupancy rates, Ballotti said he can’t predict when the hotel business will return to pre-Covid-19 levels. “It’s going to be a long road back,” he said. —Hannah Miller

5:15 p.m. ET — Residents in California’s Orange County are no longer required to wear face masks, according to an amended health order. Instead, the order strongly recommends wearing a face covering to help curb the spread of the virus.

The amended order follows the resignation of former Chief Health Officer Dr. Nichole Quick earlier this week. Quick had received threats and criticism after issuing and defending the face mask requirement.

Orange County also made news earlier in the pandemic when California Gov. Gavin Newsom shut down its beaches after they were overcrowded. —Hannah Miller

4:30 p.m. ET — Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said the state reported 731 news coronavirus cases since Thursday, the largest daily jump since the outbreak began. There are now over 200 people hospitalized with Covid-19, “which is significantly higher than when we were really at what I thought was the first peak in April,” he said.

Arkansas is still scheduled to move into its phase two reopening on Monday. Hutchinson said so far he thinks Arkansas’ reopening strategy is the right one, but the state “might not be doing it well enough.”

“As I look into next week, I do expect the cases to continue to increase,” he said. —Noah Higgins-Dunn

4 p.m. ET — Senate Democrats raised concerns to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in two separate critiques of the Treasury’s Paycheck Protection Program. In a letter signed by all Senate Democrats, they pushed for changes to the forms required by the program. The current application, at 11 pages long, is too onerous, they said, particularly for smaller businesses that may not have the resources to hire accountants. They also pushed for the creation of a well-staffed hotline to offer help for those applying to the program, and a “suite” of online tools designed to help applicants.

Later, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer railed against Mnuchin for comments he made in a Senate hearing earlier this week, indicating the Treasury would not be publicly disclosing the names of recipients of PPP loans.

“The administration’s resistance to transparency is outrageous and only serves to raise further suspicions about how the funds are being distributed and who is actually benefiting,” Schumer said. —Lauren Hirsch

3:02 p.m. ET — Public health officials fighting the coronavirus are facing criticism and threats surrounding their response to the pandemic, and in some cases are leaving their posts as a result.

Kaiser Health News and The Associated Press found at least 27 state and local health officials in 13 states have resigned, retired or been fired since April.

The Associated Press reported Ohio’s state health director resigned Thursday after protestors showed up at her house, and the health officer of Orange County, Calif., quit Monday after weeks of criticism and personal threats from residents and other public health officials.

Leaders in the public health field said officials are facing threats to property and funding and are exhausted from taking heat around health-related decisions during the pandemic. –Alex Harring

2:10 p.m. ET — A dramatic rise in U.S. Covid-19 cases may force states to reimplement the strict social distancing measures that were seen earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

“If cases begin to go up again, particularly if they go up dramatically, it’s important to recognize that more mitigation efforts such as what were implemented back in March may be needed again,” CDC’s Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases Jay Butler told reporters during a press briefing.

The decision would have to be made locally and based on “what is happening within the community regarding disease transmission,” he said. The comments came as public health experts express concern that some states are opening prematurely as U.S. job losses continue to mount and pressure grows on state leaders to allow people to go back to work. —Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

1:43 p.m. ET — A new survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a majority of Americans would not feel safe if social distancing measures meant to curb the spread of the virus were lifted right now. The survey results were based on 2,402 people in New York City, Los Angeles and broadly across the United States.

Most respondents in the three cohorts also supported stay-at-home orders and nonessential business closures, the CDC said. The health agency noted that responses differed “significantly” when looking at age, employment status, and essential worker status. For example, 43% of people between the ages of 18 and 24 said they would feel safe if restrictions were lifted, twice as high as people aged 65 and older. —Berkeley Lovelace Jr. 

1:34 p.m. ET — As the virus declines in some countries in Europe and Asia, the pandemic continues to expand in many countries, World Health Organization officials said.

“We are concerned that we are still very much on the upswing of this pandemic in many countries, particularly in the global south,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s emergencies program, said. “We are concerned that some countries are having difficulties in exiting the so-called lockdowns as they’re seeing increase of cases again.”

He added that the Americas have been hit especially hard, accounting for four of the 10 countries where the virus is spreading most rapidly. As other countries exit lockdowns, he said, it’s important health officials are able to respond to the virus in more targeted ways to prevent a resurgence. —Will Feuer

1:25 p.m. ET — As reopening plans progress, some states are seeing increased coronavirus hospitalizations over the past week, according to a CNBC analysis of data from the Covid Tracking Project. Eight states experienced an increase of more than 5% in the average number of currently hospitalized patients compared to the average a week earlier. Included in this list is Texas, which reported three straight days of record hospitalizations this week.

Like many metrics used to track the spread of the virus, hospitalization data has its limitations, and there is variation in the quality and consistency in reporting from states. For a handful of states, data on current hospitalizations was not available at all. But hospitalization data is less dependent on the availability of testing than other closely tracked measures, such as the number of confirmed cases, which is influenced by testing capacity and the severity of symptoms required in order to receive a test. 

Still, hospitalizations is a lagging indicator — it can take weeks for people to be exposed to the virus, get tested, and became sick enough to go to the hospital — meaning the coming weeks will provide more insight into whether U.S. hospitals will again see an uptick in coronavirus patients. —Nate Rattner

1:14 p.m. — The New York attorney general’s office is collecting information from Amazon warehouse workers as part of its probe into the company’s labor practices, according to people familiar with the matter. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter to Amazon in April notifying the company it was looking into claims that it retaliated against workers who’ve spoken about its response to the coronavirus.

Amazon has fired at least six employees and written up four workers who were outspoken critics of the company’s labor practices or participated in protests. The company has previously disputed claims that it fired workers for speaking out, saying they were fired for violating internal policies.

The office began contacting workers in late March. So far, it has spoken to employees from facilities in Staten Island, Queens and Bethpage, and is adding more facilities to its roster as it receives complaints, the people said. 

The conversations have touched on Amazon’s safety practices during the coronavirus pandemic, including enforcement of social distancing rules, workers’ access to personal protective equipment and its documentation of positive coronavirus cases at facilities. By collecting this information, the office is looking to build a case of Amazon’s retaliatory practices against workers who spoke out about warehouse conditions, according to some of the people familiar with the matter. —Annie Palmer

12:26 p.m. ET — Saudi Arabia is considering canceling the hajj pilgrimage this year, according to a report from the Financial Times.

A sacred ritual for Muslims, the hajj involves traveling to the holy city of Mecca and draws around 2 million people to Saudi Arabia each year. With the hajj taking place from July 29 to Aug. 4, Saudi officials have faced pressure to cancel in order to keep the virus from spreading.

However, with the hajj expected to generate $12 billion for Saudi Arabia, canceling it could add pressure to the country’s economy, which has already been hit by a drop in oil demand amid the pandemic. —Hannah Miller

12:05 p.m. ET — American Airlines says it reduced its cash burn to $40 million a day, down from an expected $50 million a day, thanks to an uptick in travel. The Fort Worth-based carrier aims to eliminate its cash burn to near zero by the end of the year.

Through June 8, American has been flying an average of 129,000 passengers a day and its flights are 62% full, though capacity is down 70% from a year ago. In May, the carrier said it flew 85,000 travelers a day with a load factor of 47% and capacity off 75% from May 2019.

Despite the increase in demand, the number of people passing through checkpoints at U.S. airports is down 81% from a year ago, according to the Transportation Security Administration. 

American also reiterated a forecast that it still sees revenue in the second quarter to down 90% from a year ago, when it posted sales of close to $12 billion.  —Leslie Josephs

10:51 a.m. ET — U.S. property and casualty insurers have said they aren’t able nor required to compensate small businesses for the costs created by the coronavirus crisis, Reuters reported.

State and city lawmakers have proposed requiring insurers to pay for the lost income small businesses have faced as a result of the pandemic, according to Reuters. But the American Property Casualty Insurance Association estimated it could cost the industry $255 billion to $431 billion each month, a figure which the trade group warned could make insurers insolvent, the wire service reported.

Insurers have argued their service only covers physical property damage that prevents a business from operating, so requiring them to pay for coronavirus-related issues would be unconstitutional. Legal experts told Reuters there is precedent for insurers to cover physical loss without physical damage.

Approximately 40% of small firms have business interruption coverage, according to the Insurance Information Institute. —Alex Harring

10:45 a.m. ET — For the first time in nearly 40 years, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual symposium for central bankers and economists will not be held at mountain resort Jackson Hole, Wyoming, due to the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported

The bank will instead host a virtual meeting on Aug. 27-28 with the theme: “Navigating the Decade Ahead: Implications for Monetary Policy,” according to Reuters. In April, the bank said it was “considering the implications” for the event upon hearing news the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park, the site for the annual event since 1982, would not open for the season because of Covid-19.

International central bankers, Federal Reserve officials, academics and private-sector economists will all take part in this year’s virtual event, which will be live-streamed to the public, Reuters said. —Suzanne Blake

10:30 a.m. ET — New coronavirus cases rising in several states isn’t the feared “second wave” – it’s still the first one, scientists and infectious disease specialists say.

While new cases are on the decline in once hot spots like New York state, cases are on the rise in places like Texas and Arizona with the U.S. still seeing roughly 20,000 new cases a day.

A handful of states like New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts have experienced “clear first-wave outbreaks,” said Nicholas Reich, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “However, many states have had more of a first-wave plateau, without a clear decline for many weeks.” —Berkeley Lovelace, Jr.

9:58 a.m. ET — Los Angeles County revealed its list of safety protocols for restarting film and television production late Thursday. The county’s strict rules include health checks, social distancing and the use of personal protective equipment on sets.

Scenes that require prolonged physical contact, like fight scenes or sex scenes, are being discouraged and actors are being instructed to remain “as silent as possible to avoid spreading droplets through talking.” Large gatherings of background actors for scenes are also being discouraged by the county.

Many of the restrictions, while needed for safety, could impede certain productions from restarting, as many scenes in established scripts may not be able to be filmed as written. —Sarah Whitten

9:37 a.m. ET — Stocks started the day higher and clawed back some of the sharp losses from Wall Street’s worst day since March, reports CNBC’s Fred Imbert and Eustance Huang. The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened 684 points higher, or 2.8%. The S&P 500 gained 2.6% while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 2.4%. —Melodie Warner 

8:22 a.m. ET — Coronavirus-related mortgage relief programs saw the number of borrowers decrease for the second straight week, CNBC’s Diana Olick reports.

Borrowers fell by 77,000 from last week and are now down 112,000 since the peak week of May 22, with loans financed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac showing the greatest decrease.

These programs allow borrowers to delay monthly payments for up to a year.

“With 4.6 million remaining in forbearance, there is still significant work ahead,” said Andy Walden, director of market research for Black Knight, which tracks the data. “With volumes seemingly cresting, the focus now shifts to helping those homeowners who remain in forbearance get back on track financially.”  —Suzanne Blake

7:18 a.m. ET — British Airways plans to auction off artwork to offset the financial damage from the coronavirus crisis.

The auction will reportedly include works from Damien Hirst, Peter Doig and Bridget Riley, with one piece valued at over £1 million ($1.26 million), The Evening Standard first reported.

The airline has faced immense financial pressure amid the crisis, with the outbreak forcing flights to be grounded and suppressing demand for travel. At least 10 artworks from the airline’s collection, which had previously been on display in its airport lounges, will be put up for sale. —Chloe Taylor

7:12 a.m. ET — Oregon is placing a 7-day pause on county applications to move deeper into reopening amid a spike in new cases, Gov. Kate Brown announced on Twitter late Thursday. 

The governor began to ease restrictions on some outdoor activities on May 5 and allowed some stores to reopen with modifications on May 15. On Thursday, Oregon reported 178 new Covid-19 cases, bringing the state’s total to 5,237. Two more people died due to Covid-19, bringing the state’s death toll to 171.

“This one-week pause will give public health experts time to assess what factors are driving the spread of the virus,” Brown said in a statement on Twitter. “I will use the data we see in the next week to determine whether to lift this pause or extend it.” —Will Feuer

Read CNBC’s previous coronavirus live coverage here: UK GDP posts steepest one-month fall in April, Twitter takes down China-linked accounts spreading disinformation