Coronavirus updates: Italy reports lowest daily death toll, UK outlines ‘conditional’ plan to slowly reopen

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. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson outlined a “conditional” plan to reopen his country’s economy, but said there would be no immediate end to lockdown in Britain. Italy reported 165 new deaths from Covid-19, the lowest daily death toll since March 9, the Civil Protection Agency said.

Frustrated by local authorities holding up the reopening of Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, Elon Musk said this weekend that his company will “move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately.” The disagreement over safety, commerce and public health between Tesla and California is playing out across the U.S. as states continue to relax stay-at-home orders and reopen businesses.

The number of Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. is now over 80,000, with the number of cases at more than 1.3 million, according to the latest NBC News count.

• Global cases: More than 4 million
• Global deaths:  More than 280,000
• U.S. cases: More than 1.3 million
• U.S. deaths: More than 80,000

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Vice President Mike Pence will distance himself for the next couple of days after one of his aides tested positive for coronavirus, a senior official told NBC News.

The precautions don’t amount to self-isolation because there are no restrictions on his schedule, the official said.

“Vice President Pence will continue to follow the advice of the White House Medical Unit and is not in quarantine,” said Devin O’Malley, the vice president’s spokesman. “Additionally, Vice President Pence has tested negative every single day and plans to be at the White House tomorrow.” —Riya Bhattacharjee, Spencer Kimball

Digital contact tracing could become a multi-billion dollar market, according to some estimates, as technology companies enter this new field to build everything from wearables to apps to track and stop coronavirus from spreading in the workplace.

“Looking at larger organizations that would probably be more apt to institute something like this, like organizations that employ over 1000 people, and if I take a percentage of those that don’t opt in, even with all of those assumptions, I’m still looking at like a $4.3 billion potential market for this,” said Laura Becker, an analyst covering employee experience and benefits for IDC. 

Apple and Google, among nonprofit groups, are creating software for contact tracing, too, but their system is targeted at the public. —Riya Bhattacharjee, Kif Leswing

The coronavirus pandemic has brought the travel and tourism industry to a standstill — when it does reopen, expers say look for it to start with road trips not far from home. The new travel normal may mean a shift to vacation rentals over hotels, driving rather than flying, and an increase in the use of travel insurance and personal travel advisors.

“Tourism recovery typically begins locally,” said Elizabeth Monahan, spokesperson for TripAdvisor.com. “Travelers tend to first venture out closer to home, and visit their local eateries, stay local for a weekend getaway or travel domestically before a robust demand for international travel returns.” —Riya Bhattacharjee, Kenneth Kiesnoski

The coronavirus pandemic is changing the way people will vote in 2020, and while it’s not clear whether these changes will become the new norm, voting by mail is expanding in multiple states. Some are implementing more rigorous cleaning at polls while others are looking at replacing poll workers who may be more succeptible to the disease.

Nebraska’s primary is Tuesday. “We are currently focused on the primary election and have not yet made any plans for the general election in November,” Nebraska assistant secretary of state Cindi Allen told CNBC. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on Friday allowing all registered voters in the state to receive a mail-in ballot this November. California will continue to provide an opportunity for people to vote in person at a polling center. “That mail-in ballot is important, but it’s not an exclusive substitute to physical locations,” Newsom said. —Riya Bhattacharjee, Yelena Dzhanova

Tesla has released a plan to bring its employees back to work amid an escalating dispute with local health authorities in California over a shelter-in-place order that has kept the automaker’s Fremont factory idle during the coronavirus pandemic. 

A response team that includes a physician is establishing health and safety guidelines based on location and job-specific risk assessments, the company said.

Tesla argues that the Fremont factory falls under California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s essential workforce guidelines and should resume production since it is critical national infrastructure. – Emma Newburger

Millions of Americans who suffer from hearing and vision loss claim measures for the disabled, with regard to public health emergency response planning, have been less than adequate in the Covid-19 crisis. Many in this community are struggling to access critical health-care services, including Covid-19 testing. The CDC and WHO are trying to make information available to the disabled. However, disability advocates say gaps remain. —Alyssa Jackson

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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson took the first steps to ease some strict coronavirus lockdown measures and slowly begin to reopen the country’s economy.

Johnson said that citizens who cannot work from home should be “actively encouraged” to go to work from Monday, but avoid using public transport if possible. People will also be allowed to take unlimited amounts of exercise.

“We now need to stress that anyone who can’t work from home, for instance those in construction or manufacturing, should be actively encouraged to go to work,” Johnson said.

Johnson earlier tweeted that the government guidance had The instructions include ”stay at home as much as possible,” “limit contact with other people” and “keep your distance if you go out.”

“This is not the time simply to end the lockdown this week,” Johnson said in a televised address. “Instead we are taking the first careful steps to modify our measures.” —Riya Bhattacharjee, Matt Clinch

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the U.S. unemployment rate may have already soared to 25% and warned that the country could see “permanent economic damage” if the country does not reopen.

The reported numbers are probably going to get worse before they get better,” Mnuchin told Chris Wallace during an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” adding that “next year is going to be a great year.” In just over a month, the coronavirus has erased all job gains since the Great Recession, bringing the nation’s decade-long economic growth streak to a grinding halt. —Amanda Macias

New York’s daily Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths are starting to return to where they were when the state closed nonessential businesses in March, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday.  

Cuomo said at a press briefing that there were 521 hospitalizations and 207 deaths the prior day. The hospitalization figure returns New York “back to where we were when we started this hellish journey,” Cuomo said.

Deaths remain “still terribly high, but better,” he said. ”All of this work, all of this progress of turning that tide, of reducing the rate of infection, that’s all thanks to New Yorkers and what New Yorkers did,” Cuomo said. —Tucker Higgins

The Covid-19 outbreak is bringing back memories for San Francisco’s medical community who found themselves in the frontlines of the HIV epidemic back in the 1980s, CNBC’s Christina Farr reports. The city was praised for its response back then, and is being praised for its early response to the coronavirus pandemic now.

“Going through this pandemic brings up visceral, emotional memories of HIV,” said longtime San Francisco resident Barbara Welles Seegal. “Many of us lost loved ones and I lost a number of good friends. It never really goes away.”

Dr. Molly Cooke and Dr. Paul Volberding praised the fact that San Francisco took patient privacy seriously during the HIV epidemic. ”Those of us in the epidemic were really sensitive about that,” said Dr. Cooke. “It was almost to a fault. Looking back, we could have worked with public health more.” —Riya Bhattacharjee, Christina Farr

When Washington state closed casinos as part of its pandemic response, the Kalispel Tribe essentially lost its economy, the Associated Press reported.

About 500 casinos run by tribes have closed during the pandemic, a move that often shut down the communities’ main source of income, according to the AP.

The federal government authorized $8 billion for tribes as part of a coronavirus relief package in March, but the money is slow to get out, which has increased financial pressure on reservations.

“We can’t fund any programs without the casino,” Phil Haugen, chief operating officer of the Kalispel Tribal Economic Authority, told the AP.

The Kalispel Tribe’s Northern Quest Casino closed for about two months, costing the tribe millions of dollars, but reopened Tuesday, the AP reported. The casino is limiting the number of customers, frequently cleaning, and is operating fewer slot machines and chairs at table games to keep social distancing procedures in place. —Chris Eudaily

Italy reported 165 new deaths from Covid-19, the lowest daily death toll since March 9, the Civil Protection Agency said, according to Reuters.

New cases fell to 802 and were under 1,000 for the first time since early March, according to Reuters.

The agency now reports 30,560 dead from coronavirus since the outbreak came to light and 219,070 total infections, according to Reuters. —Chris Eudaily

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said the Department of Veterans Affairs may have put coronavirus patients at unnecessary risk by allowing the use of hydroxychloroquine, an unproven drug, on veterans, the Associated Press reported.

Schumer is asking for additional information from the VA about an order for $208,000 worth of the drug, which President Donald Trump has heavily promoted, without evidence, as a treatment for Covid-19, according to the AP.

“There are concerns that they are using this drug when the medical evidence says it doesn’t help and could hurt,” Schumer told the AP.

Former Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority Rick Bright, who was removed from his post in April and has filed a whistleblower complaint, alleged that the Trump administration wanted to “flood” hot spots in New York and New Jersey with the unproven drug, the AP reported. —Chris Eudaily

A road trip may never be the same.

A recent study found that 82% of travelers polled changed travel plans for the next six months, but the lasting effects on the travel industry will likely stretch well into the future.

“Tourism recovery typically begins locally,” Elizabeth Monahan, spokeswoman for TripAdvisor.com, told CNBC’s Kenneth Kiesnoski. “Travelers tend to first venture out closer to home, and visit their local eateries, stay local for a weekend getaway or travel domestically before a robust demand for international travel returns.”

How will a typical family vacation change once travel and tourism begin again post-pandemic? Travelers are likely to prefer domestic destinations that you can reach by car and stays at private rentals instead of hotels and resorts. —Chris Eudaily

Though the 2020 presidential election is months away, states are preparing for the pandemic to change the way they run polling locations and voting operations. 

State voting officials told CNBC’s Yelena Dzhanova they are preparing for elections with social distancing guidelines still in effect. 

States like North Carolina, Hawaii, Delaware and Alabama are planning to step up cleaning at poll centers. Other states are anticipating how to run polling centers if older workers and other volunteers who fear exposure do not show up to work.

Multiple states have already moved to expand voting by mail, and other states are looking at ways to make in-person voting safer. —Chris Eudaily

White House advisor Kevin Hassett told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the U.S. unemployment rate could soar up to 20% as the coronavirus pandemic brings the country’s decade-long economic growth streak to an abrupt halt.

“This is the biggest negative shock to an economy that we have ever seen in our lifetimes. It hit an economy that in January was about the strongest economy we’d ever seen,” explained Hassett on “State of the Union.”

“The fact, though, is with all of the aggressive bipartisan action to toss maybe as much as $9 trillion at this sort of bridge to the other side, we see things like the jobs report on Friday — almost everybody who declared themselves unemployed said they expect to go back to work in six months,” he added.

The U.S. economy lost an unprecedented 20.5 million jobs in April as the unemployment rate soared to 14.7%, up from 4.4% in March, according to the monthly employment report, released Friday by the Department of Labor. —Amanda Macias

White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said that the Trump administration is in informal talks with U.S. lawmakers from both parties about the next coronavirus relief package. 

The White House has paused formal negotiations with Congress until late May or early June as it waits for more information about how state re-openings and the previous round of relief impact the economy. 

Senate Democrats and Republicans have a conference call scheduled on Monday with Kudlow and White House economic adivsor Kevin Hassett to discuss next steps. Kudlow and Hassett held a conference call with 50 members of the House on Friday to discuss the coronavirus response.  —Emma Newburger

The Chinese foreign ministry rejected “preposterous allegations” by U.S. politicians that China withheld information about Covid-19, including the origins of the virus, Reuters reported.

In a 30-page, 11,000-word article posted on the ministry website, China refuted U.S. accusations that the virus was created or leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to Reuters. The ministry said evidence shows Covid-19 is not man-made and that the institute could not synthesize a new coronavirus.

Challenging accusations that the country was slow to sound the alarm to the international community, the ministry said China provided information in a “timely,” “open and transparent” manner, Reuters reported.

The ministry article also responded to criticism of China’s handling of the 34-year-old doctor who tried to raise the alarm over the outbreak in Wuhan, Li Wenliang, who later died from the virus.

The ministry said Li was not a “whistleblower” and he was never arrested, Reuters reported. —Chris Eudaily

The U.S. spent nearly $3 billion to manufacture ventilators after President Donald Trump said in late March that his administration would have 100,000 of the breathing devices within 100 days, according to the Associated Press.

The AP analyzed federal contracting data that showed the Department of Health and Human Services will exceed the president’s target by July 13, which is a week later than the 100-day goal set by Trump.

HHS looks to be getting nearly 200,000 new breathing devices by the end of 2020, according to the AP, which would more than double the number of estimated ventilators that were in U.S. hospitals before the pandemic.

But the ventilator push may be too much, too late.

The demand for the devices has dropped over the last month as the U.S. death toll from the virus nears 80,000, according to the AP. Doctors changed the way they used ventilators on patients after observing unusually high death rates for coronavirus victims put on breathing machines. —Chris Eudaily

CORRECTION: This entry has been updated to correct the U.S. death toll, which is nearing 80,000.

The United Kingdom is changing its flagship “stay at home” slogan to “stay alert,” Reuters reports.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce a five-tier warning system in England as part of the government’s roadmap for easing lockdown measures, according to Reuters.

Johnson is scheduled to announce the updates in a televised address, which will include a push for people who cannot work from home to get back to work, and easing the limit on allowing people to exercise only once a day, according to a government official and British media, via Reuters.

“We need to have a broader message because we want to slowly and cautiously restart the economy and the country,” Housing Minister Robert Jenrick said in an interview, according to Reuters. —Chris Eudaily

Read CNBC’s coverage from CNBC’s Asia-Pacific and Europe teams overnight here: Russia cases top 200,000