Coronavirus live updates: Trump to unveil reopening guidelines, China races toward a vaccine

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 2,076,000
• Global deaths: At least 138,008
• US cases: More than 639,600
• US deaths: At least 30,985

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Stocks opened higher even as investors digested more data reflecting the economic devastation from the coronavirus pandemic. The Dow Jones Industrial Average traded 44 points higher, or 0.2%. The S&P 500 climbed 0.7% while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.1%. 

Thursday’s moves followed a slump during regular trading on Wednesday as gloomy economic data and anemic bank earnings fueled concerns over the coronavirus’s impact on the U.S. economy. —Fred Imbert, Thomas Franck 

The coronavirus and the forced closure of business throughout the U.S. have nearly wiped out the totality of job gains since the financial crisis.

The Labor Department reported on Thursday that the number of Americans applying for state unemployment benefits totaled 5.245 million during the week ended April 11. 

Combined with the government’s prior three jobless claims reports, the number of Americans who’ve filed for unemployment over the previous four weeks is 22.025 million. That number is just below the 22.442 million jobs added to nonfarm payrolls since November 2009, when the U.S. economy first began to add jobs back to the economy after the recession. —Thomas Franck 

Billionaire businessman Barry Diller told CNBC on Thursday the United States government should bail out all companies that have been hit hard by the coronavirus, including those in the travel industry. 

“The damage that is being done every day is enormous,” Diller said on “Squawk Box.” “Everybody needs to be bailed out for this one time thing, and we’ll worry about paying the bills later.”

The comments from Diller, chairman of travel site Expedia and digital media group IAC, came after major U.S. airlines and the Treasury Department reached a deal that gives the carriers access to loans and grants to support payroll. In return, the government gets warrants that could become equity stakes. 

Diller said Expedia is generating no revenue and will need to cut costs, including in advertising. —Jesse Pound 

Starbucks is preparing to reopen cafes as some U.S. states report that the number of new coronavirus cases has plateaued or even declined. 

The coffee chain closed most of its U.S. and Canadian cafe lobbies on March 21, limiting service to delivery and drive-thru only. More than 60% of its U.S. cafes have a drive-thru lane. Starbucks initially said the closures would be for two weeks but later extended the measures until May 3. —Amelia Lucas

U.S. home-building activity collapsed in March as the coronavirus spread, with housing starts tumbling 22.3% from a month ago.

The Commerce Department said Thursday that ground breakings occurred last month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.2 million units, down from a 1.56 million pace in February. Construction of single-family houses fell 17.5%, while apartment and condo starts were off 32.1% from a month ago.

The report showed a 6.1% decline in the completion of homes being constructed, which means many homes are being left half built. There was also a 6.8% drop in permits to begin construction. —Associated Press 

The U.K. will most likely fail to strike a new trade agreement with the European Union by the end of the year, analysts have told CNBC, as the coronavirus crisis threatens to derail official trade talks.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged to conclude a post-Brexit trade deal this year. The U.K. left the bloc on January 31, but it is currently in a transition phase, until December, to be able to establish future trade arrangements with the other 27 nations.

However, this timeline is now at risk after the two lead negotiators had to isolate due to Covid-19 infections. British and European negotiating teams held a call on Wednesday for the first time since both lead negotiators were forced to self-isolate. —Silvia Amaro 

BlackRock co-founder and CEO Larry Fink said the U.S. needs to increase its testing capacity for the coronavirus before its economy can restart in earnest. 

“We’re going to still see elements of the disease increasing in other parts of the world and until we have adequate testing, rapid testing, it’s very hard to see how we’re going to reboot in the next 30 days,” Fink said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Fink expressed confidence that the U.S. will make progress on Covid-19 treatments, minimizing the severity of the disease. “Through that process, I do believe we’ll be able to reboot. I do believe we’re going to have a better, more normalized environment,” he said. 

“But it may not be in June or July. It may be in August,” he said.

Fink, whose firm is the world’s biggest asset manager, said he believes businesses will be “very cautious” and “protective of their employees” as they consider when and how to relax work-from-home policies. —Kevin Stankiewicz 

Protection measures against the coronavirus continued to tear through the employment ranks, with 5.245 million more Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The new filings bring the crisis total to just over 22 million, nearly wiping out all the job gains since the Great Recession.

Though the most recent total, for the week ended April 11, represented a drop from the previous two weeks, it still showed that the damage to the U.S. labor market remains profound.

The numbers of late have been bolstered by measures taken to allow more workers to file claims. They now include independent contractors and others who previously were not eligible for benefits. —Jeff Cox

Jeff Bezos published Amazon’s annual shareholder letter, in which he detailed how the company has responded to the coronavirus pandemic so far.

Bezos stressed the importance of testing in order for the public to return to work, as well as for his own employees to be protected from the virus. He pointed to Amazon’s efforts to develop “incremental testing capacity,” which the company announced last week. As part of that announcement, Amazon said it hopes to begin testing all of its employees, including those who show no symptoms.

“Regular testing on a global scale, across all industries, would both help keep people safe and help get the economy back up and running,” Bezos said. “For this to work, we as a society would need vastly more testing capacity than is currently available.” —Annie Palmer

President Donald Trump said Wednesday evening that he would release on Thursday national guidelines for reopening the economy. 

“We’ll be opening up some states much sooner than others,” he said at a White House coronavirus task force briefing. “We think some of the states can actually open up before the deadline of May 1.”

The governors of seven states on the East Coast and three states on the West Coast have announced regional working groups to coordinate the reopening of the regions. With the exception of Massachusetts, all ten states actively developing plans to reopen are led by Democratic governors. —Will Feuer

Three Chinese companies have vaccine candidates in clinical trials, CNBC’s Eunice Yoon reports from Beijing. One company, Nasdaq-listed Sinovac, has already started enlisting volunteers to receive the first experimental doses. The company aims to complete safety and efficacy trials by June.

The Chinese government has allocated land for mass production of a successful vaccine candidate once it’s ready, Yoon reports, and has expedited the approval process for human clinical trials. —Will Feuer

Dominic Raab, who is deputizing for Prime Minister Boris Johnson while he is recovering from a serious case of Covid-19, is meeting government ministers Thursday, and is chairing a meeting of its emergency response committee.

It’s widely expected that the country’s lockdown will be extended for three weeks, amid stark warnings that the U.K. could end up being the worst hit country from the coronavirus in Europe.

The U.K.’s top medical expert stated Wednesday that the country is probably seeing its peak of the virus (the death toll currently stands at 12,868 in British hospitals, with 761 daily deaths reported Wednesday), but it is too early to consider lifting lockdown measures that have been in place since March 23. — Holly Ellyatt

The number of daily deaths in Spain has risen slightly, according to health ministry data.

In the past day, 551 people have died from the coronavirus, bringing the total death toll to 19,130. The daily death toll on Wednesday was 523.

The overall number of infections now stands at 182,816, the ministry said, 5,183 more cases than yesterday. —Holly Ellyatt

The World Health Organization’s European regional director said that in the past 10 days, the number of confirmed cases in Europe has doubled to reach almost 1 million.

WHO’s Hans Kluge told reporters in an online briefing, reported by Reuters, this meant that about 50% of the global burden of Covid-19 was in Europe, where he said more than 84,000 have died from the virus.

“The storm clouds of this pandemic still hang heavily over the European region,” Kluge said. Commenting on the gradual lifting of restrictions on public life, Kluge said “there is no fast track back to normal.” —Holly Ellyatt

A study of Dutch blood donors has found that around 3% have developed antibodies against Covid-19, health authorities said, Reuters reported. The findings give an indication of what percentage of the Dutch population may have already had the disease.

The head of the National Institute for Health disclosed the results during a debate with parliament.

“This study shows that about 3% of Dutch people have developed antibodies against the coronavirus,” Jaap van Dissel said, the news agency reported. “You can calculate from that, it’s several hundred thousand people,” in a country of 17 million. —Holly Ellyatt

Read CNBC’s coverage from CNBC’s Asia-Pacific and Europe teams overnight here: WHO says coming weeks are ‘critical’ as Europe’s cases near 1 million