Coronavirus updates: Three West Coast states announce pact on reopening economy

The coverage on this live blog has ended — but for up-to-the-minute coverage on the coronavirus outbreak, visit the live blog from CNBC's Asia-Pacific team.

All times below are in Eastern time.

• Global cases: More than 1,912,900
• Global deaths: At least 118,966
• US cases: More than 577,300
• US deaths: At least 23,232

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

As the nation entered its third straight week of near total economic shutdown on Monday, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that it will be his decision when the nation's businesses will reopen during the coronavirus pandemic, and not a choice left to individual governors.

But legal experts say Trump is wrong. For one, they note that U.S. law gives state governors wide latitude to protect the health and safety of their constituents. Secondly, they point out that Trump never declared a nationwide lockdown, so there's no mechanism by which he could order a nationwide reopening now, namely.

Still, that did not prevent Trump from claiming that his power is nearly boundless. During a press briefing on the coronavirus Monday, he said, "When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total."

Trump's comments on Monday evening came in response to questions from reporters about an announcement the president had made earlier in the day. Citing media reports that it would be up to governors when to "open up the states," Trump wrote, "this is incorrect. It is the decision of the President, and for many good reasons." —Christina Wilkie

San Francisco Mayor London Breed issues a warning against coming to the city to celebrate the annual 420 marijuana celebration on April 20. "We will not tolerate anyone coming to San Francisco for 420 this year," Breed said.

Many people typically crowd up Golden Gate Park for the event but Breed said they'll be cited, even arrested, if necessary. "I want to be clear," she said about people who typically come to Robin Williams Meadow in Golden Gate Park. "We will not allow this unsanctioned event to occur this year. There will be police officers patrolling the area."

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Vox Media, the digital media company that owns SBNation, New York Media, The Verge and other brands, is preparing to announce a furlough of about 100 employees later this week, according to people familiar with the matter.

Vox executives are negotiating details with the Writers Guild of America, East, which represents about 350 people at Vox, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The number of people furloughed could rise or fall slightly depending on those negotiations, which are confidential, said the people. A announcement will be made by the end of the week, the people said.

Vox is discussing three-month furloughs for employees and is focusing on employees whose coverage areas have diminished during coronavirus quarantines, such as dining website Eater and SBNation, said the people. Temporary three-month employee pay cuts aimed at the company's highest earners are also being discussed, the people said. Vox also wants to ensure health care is covered for furloughed employees, one of the people said. —Alex Sherman

White House health expert Dr. Anthony Fauci walked back his recent comments about the initial U.S. response to the coronavirus, saying he used "the wrong choice of words" a day earlier when describing "pushback about shutting things down."

Fauci's comments from a CNN interview Sunday – in which he said that more lives "obviously" could have been saved if the U.S. made earlier efforts to contain the virus – were seen by some as a critique of the Trump administration's handling of the crisis. 

Trump later that evening retweeted a call to "#FireFauci." A White House spokesman said Monday that the president "is not firing Dr. Fauci," who "has been and remains a trusted adviser to President Trump."

Fauci on Monday evening defended his comments, and Trump's record on the coronavirus, while standing next to the president at the White House's daily briefing on the disease. —Kevin Breuninger

As many as 2 million veterans could miss out on the federal stimulus payments that started arriving in Americans' bank accounts this week, prompting outcries from advocates and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

The checks can total up to $1,200 per person and are being dispersed through the IRS, which requires eligible households to file a tax return in order to receive their money. But many veterans and their survivors who rely solely on government benefits, such as disability payments from Veterans Affairs, do not typically have to submit a return. 

This year, that means they could also fall through the cracks of the stimulus program.

"I served my country. I was ready to go to war," said Dennis Arellano, 61, a Marine Corps veteran who now lives in San Jose. "I think they should consider something about that."

Veterans groups estimate roughly 1.9 million veterans and their survivors could be in this category, based on the number who were in a similar situation during the Great Recession. Advocates argue that the federal government already has bank account information for those households since they receive veteran's benefits. And they're calling on the VA, IRS and Treasury Department to work together to waive the filing requirement. —Ylan Mui, Karen James Sloan

President Donald Trump said growth in new coronavirus infections stabilized and new hospitalizations in hot spots like New York slowed over the weekend, providing "clear evidence that our aggressive strategy to combat the virus is working."

"Over the weekend, the number of daily new infections remained flat, nationwide flat," Trump said at a White House press conference with the coronavirus task force on Monday. "Hospitalizations are slowing in hot spots like New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Louisiana. This is clear evidence that our aggressive strategy to combat the virus is working and that Americans are following the guidelines." —William Feuer

Stock futures were little changed in overnight trading on Monday as investors brace for an ugly earnings season with the coronavirus wrecking havoc on global corporate profits. 

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose just 20 points. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures were also flat

Earnings season is set to kick off on Tuesday with JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Johnson & Johnson reporting numbers in the morning. The first batch of results will give investors a sense of how devastating the hit to corporations could be from the pandemic. —Yun Li

Wyoming reported its first Covid-19-related death, which confirmed that all 50 states in the U.S. have seen at least one death from the virus. The state currently has 275 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to the Wyoming Department of Health. It is also one of the few states not currently under a stay-at-home order. —Hannah Miller

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic Pope Francis says it might be time for some sort of universal basic income.

"This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage" to "acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks" and to "achieve the ideal ... of no worker without rights," Pope Francis said in a letter to the World Meeting of Popular Movements, an organization representing global grassroots organizations, published on Sunday via the Vatican.

The Pope acknowledged that for many workers, the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns are making it difficult, if not impossible, for people to earn money.

"Many of you live from day to day, without any type of legal guarantee to protect you," Pope Francis says in the letter. "Street vendors, recyclers, carnies, small farmers, construction workers, dressmakers, the different kinds of caregivers: you who are informal, working on your own or in the grassroots economy, you have no steady income to get you through this hard time ... and the lockdowns are becoming unbearable." —Catherine Clifford

The pace of new coronavirus infections in New Jersey is slowing even as the number of cases rises, indicating that the state's efforts to contain the pandemic are "clearly working," Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday.

The state confirmed 3,219 new cases on Sunday, a 4% jump from the previous day and the lowest percentage increase in new infections since the Covid-19 outbreak began, Murphy said. Officials believe the curve, or the daily rate of new infections, is "undeniably now flattening."

However, he said more than 2,400 people in the state have now died from Covid-19, more than the number of New Jerseyans who died in the Vietnam and Korean wars combined.

"It's still rising, these cases are still rising, Murphy said. "We have got to hit that plateau and then aggressively bring it down back on the other side." —Noah Higgins-Dunn

Germany is considering how to implement a gradual recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the country's health minister, Jens Spahn, told CNBC on Monday. 

"We are thinking about step by step, that is important ... going back to a new normal," Spahn said on "Closing Bell."

Spahn, who was speaking from Berlin, stressed that it will indeed be a new normal because "all the measures we have taken like keeping distance, wearing masks, no parties ... are definitely measures that need to be there in place for months to come." 

But Germany is in a place to begin considering what a recovery looks like because its rate of new infections has continued to slow, Spahn said. He cited the effectiveness of social distancing measures and applauded the country's residents for taking them seriously. —Kevin Stankiewicz

The Trump administration wants to delay deadlines for the 2020 census because of the coronavirus outbreak, a move that if approved would push back timetables for releasing data used to draw congressional and legislative districts, the chair of the House oversight committee said Monday.

U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney said administration officials were asking that all field operations be postponed until June 1 and that the deadline for wrapping up the nation's head count be pushed back until Oct. 31.

Field operations for the 2020 census have been suspended since mid-March and were set to resume this week. The deadline for finishing the head count also had been pushed back from the end of July to mid-August because of the pandemic. —Associated Press

AT&T will provide three months of free wireless service for nurses and doctors working on the frontlines through its FirstNet network. FirstNet was developed through a public-private partnership between AT&T and First Responder Network Authority, an independent authority within the U.S. Department of Commerce. "They are working around the clock, on the frontlines to combat the COVID-19 health crisis," AT&T CEO Jeff McElfresh said of nurses and doctors. "We want to be there to keep them connected. And that's exactly what FirstNet delivers."

Actor John Krasinski announced AT&T's offer on his new YouTube series "Some Good News," which only reports on positive, uplifting stories. —Hannah Miller

Federal health officials have granted an emergency use authorization for a coronavirus test relying on saliva samples that was developed by a Rutgers University-backed entity.

The newly authorized test, which require a person with coronavirus symptoms to spit into a cup, could increase by up to 10,000 tests per day the number of screenings for Covid-19, according to Rutgers.

The New Jersey university noted that its coronavirus test, which has already drawn attention from the White House task force on the pandemic, does not rely on nose and throat swabs, as other tests do.

An infectious disease expert, Dr. Tom Moore, told CNBC that the potential impact from such a test being widely available is "enormous."

"The release of any reliable test, expanded capacity of tests or introduction of new tests ... will go a really long way toward curbing the pandemic," said Moore, a Witchita, Kan., physician who previously served on the board of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. —Dan Mangan

Los Angeles schools will remain closed through the summer session, according to an announcement from Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner. Schools will continue to operate remotely with online classes held during the summer. The school district is waiting upon guidance from local and state authorities to determine a safe reopen date. —Hannah Miller

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced a regional partnership that will see the three states work together to contain Covid-19 and reopen the West Coast economy. Each state will still develop its own plan, but all three governors agreed to prioritize certain principles, including placing health first and using science to inform policy.

"COVID-19 doesn't follow state or national boundaries. It will take every level of government, working together, and a full picture of what's happening on the ground," the governors said in a statement. "In the coming weeks, the West Coast will flip the script on COVID-19 – with our states acting in close coordination and collaboration to ensure the virus can never spread wildly in our communities." —William Feur

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New York, New Jersey and four Northeastern states are forming a working group to keep a close watch on the coronavirus outbreak throughout the region and coordinate plans to reopen parts of the economy in those states.

Each state will name a public health and economic official that will form a working group to decide when to start easing restrictions designed to curb the Covid-19 outbreak in their states, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a press conference Monday. He said it would weigh public health and economic concerns.

"State boundaries mean very little to this virus," Cuomo said. "We started this journey together and we're going to end it together."

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who joined on the conference call, said an economic recovery can begin only after there's a complete health-care recovery. The other governors in the group are Connecticut's Ned Lamont, Rhode Island's Gina Raimondo, Pennsylvania's Gov. Tom Wolf and John Carney of Delaware. —Kevin Breuninger, Noah Higgins-Dunn, William Feur

Google is raising cash for 5,000 San Francisco Bay Area families as the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has led to an economic collapse in its backyard.

The company's philanthropic arm, Google.org, and CEO Sundar Pichai, are each giving $1 million to GiveDirectly, which delivers cash to families enrolled in a federal nutrition assistance SNAP program, the company said Sunday evening. The goal is to raise $5 million so that each family receives $1,000. 

GiveDirectly will give money to families in Bay Area ZIP codes most affected by Covid-19, according to its website. As of Monday, it had raised $2.45 million. 

The company said it's putting a call out to Bay Area Google employees and "others" to donate. —Jennifer Elias

The White House said Monday that President Donald Trump is not firing infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci despite Trump's retweet of a supporter's #FireFauci message.

"This media chatter is ridiculous, President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci," said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley. "Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted adviser to President Trump."

In a CNN interview Sunday, Fauci said more U.S. lives could have been saved had stricter measures been taken earlier. Later Sunday, Trump retweeted a former Republican congressional candidate's tweet that was critical of Fauci's comment and called for his firing. Fauci, 79, has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984. —Reuters

Shares of Netflix rose to $395.88 per share, a new 52-week high, in an otherwise red day for stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down around 2.3% at midday, while the S&P 500 was off by 1.8% and the Nasdaq Composite was down by 0.7%.

Investors have been flocking to stay-at-home stocks. Investment bank William Blair said in late March that Netflix may see an increase in subscribers because people are stuck at home spending more time watching video services during lockdowns because of the coronavirus. Needham, however, has suggested the coronavirus could be bad for Netflix because it can bee seen as a discretionary product by people who need to cut spending.

Similarly, Amazon was less than 5% from its 52-week high in early afternoon trading. —Jessica Bursztynsky

Billionaire investor Leon Cooperman said the U.S. government should offer financial assistance to companies that are struggling during the coronavirus pandemic. 

"If the government lets all these companies go bankrupt and they do disgorge labor, the government is going to have to basically pay a lot of unemployment benefits," Cooperman said on "Fast Money Halftime Report."

"Instead, they make low-interest rate or interest-free loans to these companies that are experiencing [a] liquidity crisis, the companies fix themselves up and they come back," Cooperman argued. 

Cooperman was responding to viral comments made last week on CNBC by venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, who said the U.S. government should not bail out billionaires and hedge funds as part of its response to the coronavirus pandemic. —Kevin Stankiewicz

Retiring at 65 was already becoming a fading tradition before Covid-19 sank the world's economy.

Now, that traditional retirement age could fall further by the wayside as workers pick up the pieces once the economy gets going again.

A survey from Allianz Life Insurance finds that half of Americans retired earlier than they expected. A majority of respondents said they did so for reasons outside their control, with 34% citing job-loss and 25% health-care issues.

The online survey was conducted in January, well before the U.S. economy came to a halt due to the coronavirus. But the results still point to a trend that may be amplified in the current economic conditions.

"Right now, people are fearful of the future," said Kelly LaVigne, vice president of Consumer Insights at Allianz Life. "Are the jobs going to come back? Nobody can really predict it." —Lorie Konish

President Vladimir Putin said Russia might need to call in the army to help tackle the coronavirus crisis and warned the contagion was getting worse after the number of confirmed cases rose by a record daily amount.

Moscow, the worst-hit area, and several other regions have imposed a lockdown, ordering residents to stay at home except to buy food, seek urgent medical treatment, take out the rubbish, or go to work if absolutely necessary.

Putin criticized what he said was sloppiness in some regions that had allowed local outbreaks to gain a foothold and urged regional leaders to make use of what he said was a three- to four-week lag with Moscow. —Reuters

Stocks fell, giving back some of the sharp gains from the previous week, as investors continued to weigh the coronavirus outlook along with a historic oil production cut.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 505 points, or 2.1%. The S&P 500 fell 1.8% while the Nasdaq Composite pulled back 0.7%. —Fred Imbert

Britain should expect the number of daily deaths from coronavirus to continue to rise this week, followed by a plateau for a period of two to three weeks, the government's chief scientific adviser said.

"You'd expect that (the plateau) to go on for two or three weeks, but I can't be absolutely sure on the time of that," Dr. Patrick Vallance said at a daily government news conference.

After the plateau, the number of daily deaths should begin to decrease, he added. — Reuters

Mortgage rates have fallen back to recent lows, and though homebuyers aren't exactly banging on the doors during the spring housing market amid the coronavirus crisis, some hardy ones are out in the hunt. And plenty of current homeowners could still save money through a refinance.

Unfortunately, both types of loans are now harder to get as the mortgage market is badly battered on several fronts due to the impacts of the pandemic on the economy and employment.

Mortgage credit availability in March fell to the lowest level in five years, according to a survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association. Lenders cite a large drop in liquidity, as investors in jumbo mortgage-backed bonds pull back. Jumbo loans are those valued above the conforming loan limit of $510,400. —Diana Olick

The first wave of stimulus relief checks were deposited into some Americans' bank accounts over the weekend, according to the IRS. Millions more can expect to receive theirs in coming weeks as part of the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill passed to aid Americans suffering financially from the coronavirus pandemic. 

To help taxpayers check the status of their payment, the IRS this week is rolling out a tracking tool called "Get My Payment." The tool will also let users update their direct deposit information with the IRS.

The agency also unveiled an online tool for low-income Americans who do not typically file taxes to enter their banking information to receive a payment.

The checks, worth $1,200 for individuals with adjusted gross income below $75,000 and $2,400 for couples earning below $150,00, are part of the federal government's response to unprecedented unemployment levels and financial strain caused by Covid-19. —Alicia Adamczyk

With theaters closed for the foreseeable future and studios postponing blockbusters until 2021, this year's box office is expected to fall more than 40%from last year, a new report predicts.

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates the 2020 box office will reach around $6.6 billion. The last time the box office was this low was in 1998, when the industry reported $6.7 billion in ticket sales.

Through the first three months of the year, sales at the box office have tallied $1.79 billion, a 25.4% fall from a year earllier.

"Our estimates reflect our opinion that most theaters will remain closed domestically well into June, with a slow recovery over the balance of the year," Pachter wrote in a note. "We expect some regions to remain closed for several months." —Sarah Whitten

World Health Organization officials said not all people who recover from the coronavirus have the antibodies to fight a second infection, raising questions as to whether or not patients develop immunity after surviving Covid-19. 

"With regards to recovery and then reinfection, I believe we do not have the answers to that. That is an unknown," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's emergencies programs, said at a press conference at the organization's Geneva headquarters on Monday. 

A preliminary study of patients in Shanghai found that some patients had "no detectable antibody response" while others had a very high response, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's lead scientist on Covid-19. Whether the patients that had a strong antibody response were immune to a second infection is "a separate question," she added.

More than 300,000 of the 1.87 million coronavirus cases across the world have recovered, WHO officials noted, adding that they need more information from recovered patients to understand their antibody response and whether that gives them immunity and for how long. —Will Feuer, Berkeley Lovelace Jr.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday the state is "controlling the spread" of the coronavirus, and it appears that "the worst is over ... if we continue to be smart going forward."

But at the same time, Cuomo revealed that the death toll from Covid-19 in New York had topped 10,000 people.

However, he pointed to a flattening of some data points tracking the virus, or a drop in some cases, as evidence that radical measures such as the shuttering of nonessential businesses had helped to contain the virus.

"We're controlling the spread," Cuomo said at a press conference in Albany.

"The worst can be over, and is over, unless we do something reckless."

"You can turn those numbers on two or three days of reckless behaviors," he said. "If we do something stupid, you will see those numbers go right back up tomorrow." —Dan Mangan

World Health Organization officials warned against lifting government lockdowns to contain the Covid-19 outbreak too soon, saying that the coronavirus spreads fast and is 10 times deadlier than the 2009 flu pandemic.

"While Covid-19 accelerates very fast, it decelerates much more slowly. In other words, the way down is much slower than the way up," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference. "That means control measures must be lifted slowly and with control. It cannot happen all at once."

U.S. political leaders, from President Donald Trump to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have said they he hope to reopen businesses as soon as its safe to do so.

"Control measures can only be lifted if the right public-health measures are in place, including significant capacity for contact tracing," Tedros said. —Berkeley Lovelace Jr., Will Feuer

Small businesses have applied for more than half of the $350 billion allotted for the Paycheck Protection Program — and all the funds may be spoken for this week — but the amount actually disbursed to businesses is lagging well behind.

The "PPP," the Trump administration's centerpiece program to help small businesses weather the economic effects of the coronavirus, has approved 860,000 applications for $210 billion of loans through 4,500 lenders — an accomplishment praised by many bankers. But moving from application to disbursal has proven to be another challenge that bankers said has been hampered by a lack of clarity from the Treasury Department and the Small Business Administration and by the need first to use bank personnel to process applications before closing loans.

"Banks are absolutely beginning to fund and you're going to see those numbers grow dramatically," said Rob Nichols, president of the American Bankers Association. Nichols added, however, "We are still seeking some areas of guidance around some of the contours of the program." —Steve Liesman, Kate Rogers, Dawn Giel

CNBC's Jim Cramer criticized the launch of the small business loan program passed by Congress last month, arguing delays are heaping more burden on business owners.

"How many weeks do I have to front everybody?" Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street."

Cramer owns two restaurants in Brooklyn, New York.

While saying he's fortunate enough to be able to pay his employees in the absence of the small business loans, Cramer said the situation is different for many other entrepreneurs who have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

"Most people can't front people," he said. "We're not governments." —Kevin Stankiewicz

 A Navy sailor assigned to the coronavirus-stricken USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier died Monday from the disease after testing positive last month, the service confirmed.

"At approximately 8:30 a.m., Apr. 9, the Sailor was found unresponsive during a daily medical check. While Naval Base Guam emergency responders were notified, CPR was administered by fellow Sailors and onsite medical team in the house. The Sailor was transferred to U.S. Naval Hospital Guam where the Sailor was moved to the Intensive Care Unit. The Sailor was declared deceased April 13," the Navy said.

The sailor's death is the first deom Covid-19 for the Navy's vessels at sea and comes as nearly 600 sailors on the ship test positive for the coronavirus. —Amanda Macias 

The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear some oral arguments virtually in May after closing its building to the public and postponing cases as a precaution against the spreading coronavirus. 

The move is a first for the high court as it wrestles with carrying on its business despite the strain imposed by the health crisis. 

Among the disputes that will be heard via teleconference are three high-profile cases over whether President Donald Trump may keep his financial records, including his tax returns, shielded from state and congressional investigators.

The court also said the justices will also hear key Electoral College cases over whether electors's votes may differ from their state's popular vote. 

In all, the court scheduled 10 arguments to be heard over the first two weeks of May. It has not yet assigned dates for each of the cases to be argued. —Tucker Higgins 

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city was having a "very good day" as the rate of new coronavirus cases and hospitalizations continues to fall.

But de Blasio hammered away on the need for residents to maintain mitigation efforts, saying New York needed to see further progress in minimizing the number of infected people.

The number of new coronavirus hospitalizations and percentage of people testing positive for Covid-19 in New York City have all dropped, de Blasio said at a press conference. The total number of patients in intensive care has also fallen in recent days, he said. 

There were 835 ICU admissions in NYC Health + Hospitals on Saturday, compared with 857 ICU admissions the day before. —Dan Mangan, Berkeley Lovelace Jr., William Feuer 

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the coronavirus crisis will be solved only when an effective vaccine is developed and made widely available, and that could take 18 months.

"I don't think ultimate resolution comes until you have a vaccine," Cuomo said during a call-in appearance on shock jock Howard Stern's radio show.

"Where someone can say to you, 'Don't worry, Howard, there's a vaccine, you take this, you never get it, it's a nonissue,'" then the virus will finally be resolved, Cuomo said. "That's 18 months."

Cuomo's remarks came amid a growing debate over when the U.S. will contain the virus enough to reopen parts of the economy that have been crippled by the pandemic. —Kevin Breuninger 

Republican billionaire Ken Langone praised the health-care industry, public service workers and drug companies in the fight against the coronavirus, but bashed the news media.

In an interview Monday on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Langone said the media's coverage of the Trump administration's efforts against the outbreak is too aggressive because the country needs to be united.

 "Don't short America," said Langone, who is chairman of NYU Langone Medical Center, one of the nation's premier hospitals and has given hundreds of millions of dollars to NYU's hospital and medical school. 

From doctors and nurses to police officers and firefighters, "people are making sacrifices for the benefit of all of us. The least we can do is our part. Our part as citizens should be stay home, obey separation." Langone said. "It is working."

The co-founder of Home Depot and founder of investment firm Invemed Associates also lauded pharmaceutical and biotech companies for devoting all their research capabilities to trying to find a coronavirus vaccine and treatments for Covid-19. —Matthew J. Belvedere 

Amazon is hiring an additional 75,000 workers at its facilities, on top of the 100,000 new positions it created last month, the company said Monday.

In March, the company said it would hire additional warehouse and delivery workers across the country amid a surge in online shopping during the coronavirus outbreak. Since then, Amazon said it has hired more than 100,000 new employees and, as a result, is staffing up even more to help fulfill orders. 

As it continues to hire more workers, Amazon has also raised employees' hourly pay and doubled overtime pay for warehouse workers. Through the end of April, warehouse and delivery workers can earn an additional $2 per hour in the U.S., £2 per hour in the UK, and approximately €2 per hour in many EU countries. Amazon currently pays $15 per hour or more in some areas of the U.S. for warehouse and delivery jobs. —Annie Palmer 

"Good Morning America" host George Stephanopoulos revealed Monday that he's tested positive for the coronavirus, but has been relatively symptom-free.

The ABC newsman revealed his diagnosis on the show, telling co-host Robin Roberts that, "I feel fine."

Stephanopoulos' wife, Ali Wentworth, had come down with COVID-19 and tweeted that she's "never been sicker." Her husband has been taking care of her, their children and doing his TV job in the interim.

He said the only potential symptoms he has felt were a lower back ache that he had attributed to a hard workout, and a briefly diminished sense of smell. —Associated Press 

Stocks dipped on Monday, giving back some of the sharp gains from the previous week, as investors continued to weigh the coronavirus outlook along with a historic oil production cut.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 130 points at the open, or 0.5%. The S&P 500 fell 0.5% while the Nasdaq Composite pulled back 0.4%.

The U.S. stock market had one of its biggest weekly gains ever last week. The Dow posted its seventh-best weekly performance, rallying 12.7%. The S&P 500 had its biggest one-week gain since 1974, jumping 12.1%. —Fred Imbert

Amazon will begin to put new grocery delivery customers on a wait-list and curtail shopping hours at some Whole Foods stores to prioritize orders from existing customers buying food online during the coronavirus outbreak, the company said on Sunday.

Many shoppers recently seeking to purchase groceries from the Seattle-based ​e-commerce company found they could not place orders due to a lack of available delivery slots. Amazon said it would have to relegate all new online grocery customers to a wait-list starting Monday while working on adding capacity each week.

In recent weeks, it increased the number of Whole Foods stores offering grocery pickup ​to more than 150 locations, up from 80 previously.

Amazon ​also plans to shorten some Whole Foods stores' hours for the public so its employees can more quickly fulfill online grocery orders, the company said. —Reuters 

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban said the recently launched small business loan program has been beset by challenges that could impact the long-term outlook for companies.

"Banks are playing themselves. They're being banks and they're trying to determine if the credits are good and that's leading to a lot of small businesses that are left out in the cold," Cuban said on "Squawk Box." "We are at an inflection point" to get money into the system for businesses of all sizes, he said.

Cuban said some banks have questioned a company's gross margin and were therefore uncertain about making loans.

Cuban said banks have "implemented all these hurdles" that were not supposed to be a part of the program, which was established by the government's $2 trillion coronavirus relief package that was passed in late March. 

"Until we get through that friction, there's going to be a lot of issues and there's going to be a lot of people laid off and a lot of companies that go out of business," he added. —Kevin Stankiewicz

U.S. President Donald Trump retweeted a call to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after the nation's top expert on infectious diseases said lives could have been saved if the country had shut down sooner during the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Trump retweeted a message Sunday from a former Republican congressional candidate who cited Fauci's comments during a television interview on Sunday and tweeted "time to #FireFauci."

The Republican president in the past has repeated critical tweets of officials or enemies rather than make the criticism himself. The retweet fueled speculation Trump was running out of patience with the popular scientist and could conceivably fire him. The White House did not immediately return a request for comment on whether Trump is unhappy with Fauci.

Fauci was asked on CNN's "State of the Union" about a New York Times report documenting early warnings issued to the White House about the novel coronavirus. The scientist acknowledged shutting the country down sooner could have saved lives, but cautioned that a number of factors were involved.

"Obviously, it would have been nice if we had a better head start, but I don't think you could say that we are where we are right now because of one factor," Fauci said. "It's very complicated." —Reuters

The World Health Organization has come under intense scrutiny for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic with President Donald Trump's administration, China and Taiwan locked in a tussle of words.

Last week, Trump blamed the WHO for getting "every aspect" of the coronavirus pandemic wrong and threatened to withhold funding from the international organization. He also said on Twitter that the WHO is "China centric" even though the organization is largely funded by the U.S.

The latter comment echoes many of the top critiques of the WHO, such as too readily trusting information reported by China. 

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian defended the WHO, saying it has been "actively performing its duties and upholding an objective, science-based and impartial position."—Huileng Tan

Spain has reported 3,477 new coronavirus cases and a daily rise of 517 deaths, bringing the total number of fatalities to 17,489, the country's health ministry said. The number of daily deaths has fallen; the death toll the previous day was 619.

The total number of confirmed cases in Spain has now reached 169,496 (including deaths and recoveries). Spain has started to lift certain restrictions, reopening some construction sites and factories. —Holly Ellyatt

Construction and factory workers in Spain are returning to work as the government lifts some of the most stringent lockdown measures, but opposition parties are cautioning against an "imprudent" relaxation of the rules.

Spain, one of the worst-hit nations by Covid-19, has allowed some factories to reopen as well as some construction work to restart, after the sectors were ordered to stop production two weeks ago. However, the message from government officials is that the country remains in lockdown mode. Schools, bars, restaurants, and other services continue to be closed to the public and Spaniards are supposed to stay home. —Silvia Amaro

Indonesia announced 316 new cases, bringing the tally of infections in the country to 4,557. That's according to data provided by a health ministry official, Achmad Yurianto.

Twenty-six new coronavirus-related deaths were reported Monday, taking the total number to 399. —Holly Ellyatt

Russia reported 2,558 new infections, a record daily rise that brings the total number of infections to 18,328, the country's coronavirus response center said. Russia has reported 148 deaths from the virus. It says it has conducted 1.3 million tests. —Holly Ellyatt

Read CNBC's coverage from CNBC's Asia-Pacific and Europe teams overnight here: Russia reports record daily rise in new cases; Spain lifts some restrictions.