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Coronavirus updates: U.S. tops 9 million cases as Trump, McConnell and Pelosi torn on relief timeline

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. 

The U.S. continued to set new highs for Covid-19 infections this week, with Thursday marking a record 88,521 daily new cases, bringing the seven-day average of daily new cases to a new high at 76,590, a CNBC analysis of data from Johns Hopkins University showed. Hospitalizations are climbing in 41 states. Former FDA chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Friday that the cases in the U.S. are on a similar track to Europe. "If we get to the levels of some of the European countries like France and Italy, Spain, the U.K. are experiencing, it's going to really press our health care system across the country," he said.

Here are some of Friday's biggest developments:

The following data was compiled by Johns Hopkins University:

  • Global cases: More than 45.36 million 
  • Global deaths: At least 1.18 million
  • U.S. cases: More than 9.00 million
  • U.S. deaths: At least 229,293

United States sets another daily high with 97,088 new cases: NBC News tally

The United States set a record for single-day, new Covid-19 cases with 97,088 reported on Friday, according to a total from NBC News.

The tally marks the fifth time since Thursday, Oct. 22 that the U.S. has set a fresh high, according to NBC News figures, and the second consecutive day when more than 90,000 news cases were reported.

The NBC News count indicates 969 deaths from the virus in the United States on Friday, compared with 982 deaths the day prior. — Ted Kemp

U.S. cases surpass 9 million as Fauci calls daily count 'quite unacceptable'

White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said the U.S. is reporting an "extremely high and quite unacceptable" daily number of Covid-19 cases ahead of the winter season when people will be spending more time indoors, threatening to spread the virus even more.

While some have referred to the latest surge in cases as a "third wave," Fauci said the country is still grappling with its original wave of coronavirus infections.

"We never got out of the real wave. We kind of went up and down within a wave," Fauci told SiriusXM's "Doctor Radio Reports" in an interview that aired on Friday. "When I hear people talk about second and third waves, it really is the original wave that just resurges up, comes down a little, and resurges up again."

The U.S. has now surpassed 9 million total Covid-19 cases reported since the beginning of the pandemic, adding an additional 1 million cases since mid-October alone, according to Hopkins.

"We're in a precarious position over the next several weeks to months," Fauci said. — Noah Higgins-Dunn

San Francisco pauses planned reopenings after increase in cases, hospitalizations

Owner Shirley Tan talks with a diner at Sippin/Bottom's Up's parklet on Mission Street in San Francisco, Calif., October 28, 2020.
Scott Strazzante | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images

San Francisco will pause its planned reopenings, which included greater capacity for indoor dining at restaurants and movie theaters, as Covid-19 cases continue to surge across the U.S., Mayor London Breed said.

"We're beginning to see an increase in cases [and] hospitalizations. While this is not cause to move backward, we are going to pause some of the reopening scheduled for Nov 3," Breed said in a tweet.

The city will not reopen its indoor pools, bowling alleys, and locker rooms and showers at gyms as originally planned, Breed said. Instead of reopening at increased capacity, indoor restaurants, movie theaters, museums, zoos, aquariums and places of worship will stay at 25%, she said. —Noah Higgins-Dunn

Cruise stocks rise after CDC clears industry to plan re-start from Covid shutdown

Cruise stocks rose sharply after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it will replace its nearly 8-month old no-sail order with a less restrictive "Conditional Sailing Order."

Shares of the largest cruise company in the world, Carnival, soared more than 11% on the news in afternoon trading Friday, before leveling off at around 6%. Shares of Norwegian Cruise Line traded more than 4% higher and Royal Caribbean's stock was up more than 3%.

The CDC change doesn't mean cruising in the U.S. will resume next week, or potentially anytime soon, especially as new cases of the coronavirus continue to spike. The companies will need to work with the CDC through a phased approach to implementing public health measures and eventually resuming operations, the CDC said.

The CDC originally issued a no-sail order for cruise ships in U.S. waters on March 14 after hundreds of coronavirus infections and several Covid-19 deaths were reported onboard ships with outbreaks across the world. The CDC previously said "that cruise ship travel exacerbates the global spread of Covid-19" in justifying the order. —Will Feuer

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and his wife are quarantining

U.S. President Donald Trump is greeted by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp as he arrives at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., July 15, 2020.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and his wife, Marty Kemp, are in quarantine after being exposed to a person who tested positive for coronavirus, a spokesman said Friday.

Shortly before Kemp's press secretary, Cody Hall, made the announcement, Republican Rep. Drew Ferguson of Georgia revealed that he had tested positive for the virus that morning. Ferguson had shaken hands with Kemp days earlier at an outdoor campaign event, where both men spoke to a crowd of dozens of President Trump's supporters.

Hall's statement did not specify the person to whom the Kemps had been exposed.

"Today, our office was informed that Governor Kemp and the First Lady were recently exposed to an individual who received a positive test result for COVID-19," Hall said on Twitter.

"Upon notification, the Governor and the First Lady received a COVID-19 test. Per [Georgia Department of Public Health] guidance, both the Governor and the First Lady are currently quarantining," Hall said.

Ferguson, in his own statement, said that he began experiencing "mild" cold-like symptoms on Thursday night.

"This morning when I began running a slight fever, I immediately took a COVID test which has come back positive," Ferguson said.

"Following the advice of my physician, I will be self-quarantining and working from home," he said.

Video of the "MAGA Meet up" event Tuesday, which was posted by local news outlets, shows Ferguson introducing Kemp, who wore a mask as he stepped over to the lectern and gave the congressman a hearty handshake before beginning his speech.

In his remarks, Kemp mocked Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for leaving his "basement" to visit the Peach State.

"I think you should be applauding yourselves for getting Joe to come out of the basement and experience freedom in America!" Kemp told the crowd.

— Kevin Breuninger

It's anyone's guess when coronavirus stimulus will pass

The three most powerful people in Washington have three different outlooks on when the next coronavirus stimulus package could pass.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hopes to take care of relief "right at the beginning" of 2021. Pelosi thinks aid could pass soon after Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, but added that "we don't want to have to wait that long."

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, claimed stimulus will pass "immediately" after the 2020 election.

Congress has failed to send Americans fresh aid for months despite record numbers of new Covid-19 infections and an economic recovery that has left many people behind. A last-ditch effort by Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to strike a deal before Election Day failed to yield much progress.

The election, during which both Senate control and the presidency could change hands, may influence the political appetite for reaching a deal during the lame duck session before inauguration.

— Jacob Pramuk

Restaurants face a new wave of restrictions as Covid-19 cases surge

Another wave of restrictions aimed at restaurants is following the recent surge in Covid-19 cases.

In Chicago, indoor dining is once again verboten. Further west, in Denver, capacity has been slashed back to just 25% and the last call for alcoholic drinks is now 10 p.m. Across the Atlantic Ocean, France and Germany are temporarily shuttering restaurants again as they hunker down.

Taking the new restrictions in stride will be easier for fast-food chains, whose reputation for convenience and low prices helped the sector rebound faster than the broader industry.

-- Amelia Lucas

Fed loosens the conditions for its small business lending program

The Federal Reserve had adjusted its Main Street lending program in hopes of opening the lightly tapped facility to more businesses. In the latest adjustment to the initiative, the Fed cut the minimum loan to $100,000 from $250,000 and said companies that already borrowed from the Paycheck Protection Program won't have that count against their debt level for loans up to $2 million.

The program targets companies with fewer than 15,000 employees and was implemented in the early days of the pandemic to help at-risk businesses. However, only about 400 loans totaling $3.7 billion have been approved so far in a program that can lend up to $600 billion. Both borrowers and lenders have criticized the terms of the loans. –Jeff Cox

U.S. reports record daily cases as experts warn of exponential growth

The U.S. reported a record 88,521 new coronavirus cases on Thursday as the nation continues its upward climb on what's now the pandemic's third peak. Scientists are warning of exponential growth ahead of the holidays.

Covid-19 hospitalizations are also on the rise — a sign that the pandemic has taken a turn for the worse in some parts of the country, particularly in the Midwest. As of Thursday, 17 states reached record-high hospitalizations based on a seven-day average, including Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

"We cannot afford to overwhelm our hospitals, especially those in rural areas where the infrastructure is absent as well as the medical staff needed to operate the surge of ICU," Ali Mokdad, professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said during an Infectious Disease Society of America conference call.

"Unfortunately, at this stage right now, we're starting to peak rapidly in many states and we're going toward this exponential growth ... and we're keeping an eye on hospitalizations and we need to be very careful not to overwhelm our hospitals," Mokdad said. — Noah Higgins-Dunn

Donald Trump Jr. dismisses Covid deaths as ‘almost nothing'

Donald Trump Jr. delivers a pre-recorded speech to the largely virtual 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte from Washington, U.S., August 24, 2020.
Kevin Lemarque | Reuters

Donald Trump Jr. downplayed the coronavirus outbreak, saying that the number of new Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. is "almost nothing."

Over the past seven days, more than 800 people have died from the disease, on average, every day, up 14% compared with two weeks ago, according to a CNBC analysis of Hopkins data. That's a much lower number of daily deaths than the country saw in the spring, when the U.S. reported more than 2,600 deaths in a single day, but the figure is trending upward.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its forecast of Covid-19 deaths earlier this week. It now projects "an uncertain trend in new COVID-19 deaths reported over the next four weeks and predicts that 3,900 to 10,000 new deaths will likely be reported during the week ending November 21, 2020."

"The reality is this: If you look, I put it up on my Instagram a couple days ago, because I went through the CDC data, because I kept hearing about new infections," Trump Jr., the president's eldest son, said on Fox News host Laura Ingraham's show.

"But I was like, 'Well, why aren't they talking about deaths?' Oh, oh, because the number is almost nothing," he said. "Because we've gotten control of this and we understand how it works. They have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this."

—Will Feuer

Hospitalizations are on the rise in 41 states

How Planet Fitness could survive while other gyms go bankrupt

Can America's biggest gyms survive?
VIDEO15:4615:46
Can America's biggest gyms survive?

The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed the way Americans manage their fitness routine. To survive, the nation's largest gym chains, including Planet Fitness, are adapting to lure back customers with new implementations, such as social distancing, digital fitness programs, and sales of home equipment such as stationary bikes and treadmills. As the pandemic drags on, however, it remains to be seen if these measures will be enough to keep them afloat. —Terri Cullen

Drop in demand due to Covid slams Big Energy revenue

A woman fuels her SUV at an Exxon Mobile gas station in Chicago.
Getty Images

Both Exxon and Chevron said they suffered losses during the third quarter as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hammer operations. Each company saw a roughly 30% decline in revenue year-over-year.

Exxon lost 18 cents per share on an adjusted basis, which was smaller than the 25 cents per share loss expected by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv. Revenue also topped expectations. Separately, Chevron earned 11 cents per share on an adjusted basis, following aggressive cost-cutting strategies. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv expected the company to lose 27 cents per share.

"Third-quarter results were down from a year ago, primarily due to lower commodity prices and margins resulting from the impact of COVID-19," Chevron Chairman and CEO Michael Wirth said in a statement. "The world's economy continues to operate below pre-pandemic levels, impacting demand for our products which are closely linked to economic activity." —Pippa Stevens

New data from Comscore show how important New York is to the film industry

Eight months after movie theaters were forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic, a major market in the U.S. remains inoperable. While New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has permitted theaters in the state to reopen to limited capacity, theaters within the five boroughs must remain shuttered.

There are nearly 300 cinemas in New York state, but the key geographic metric that analysts are focused on is New York's designated market area, or DMA. This is an area surrounding New York City that includes part of Connecticut and New Jersey, and excludes cinemas north of Albany and west of Cooperstown.

The designated market area of New York.
Comscore

Within this DMA are 234 cinemas that represent 7.4% of the total domestic box office, according to Comscore. That is the second-highest driver of ticket sales in the U.S., just behind the Los Angeles DMA, which accounts for 8.9%.

Perhaps what is most important is that this region includes the 45 locations in New York City, which represent nearly 40% of the DMS' total ticket sales, according to Comscore data. Currently, only one theater is open in New York City, a drive-in location that is exempt from coronavirus restrictions on indoor theaters. —Sarah Whitten

Americans should not 'let their guard down' on Covid precautions, Gottlieb says

Expect U.S. Covid cases to accelerate in coming weeks: Former FDA chief Dr. Gottlieb
VIDEO4:5004:50
Expect U.S. Covid cases to accelerate in coming weeks: Former FDA chief Dr. Gottlieb

Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC that Americans "should not let their guard down" over the next few months, including around Halloween and Thanksgiving.

"We should try to remain vigilant and be careful these last two or three months as we get through what is going to be the most difficult season," the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner said on "Squawk Box."

Gottlieb said people have made sacrifices since March, when the Covid-19 crisis began to intensify, and he warned of the risks of easing up on precautions like mask-wearing and larger gatherings now, as the country enters the "final stages of the acute phase" of the pandemic. "We've protected people for a long period of time," he said. —Kevin Stankiewicz

Disclosure: Dr. Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic-testing start-up Tempus and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings′ and Royal Caribbean's Healthy Sail Panel.

Under Armour cautions better-than-expected outlook could be hurt by Covid 'flare-up'

Patrik Frisk, recently appointed Chief Executive Officer Of Under Armour, speaks at the 2020 Under Armour Human Performance Summit on January 14, 2020 in Baltimore, Maryland.
Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images

Under Armour reported better-than-expected sales and earnings, also offering a more upbeat outlook for 2020, as consumers stocked up on its sneakers and workout gear during the pandemic.

The news sent the retailer's share price soaring. The company cautioned, however, that everything could change if there is a repeat of lockdowns and the closing of nonessential retail businesses.

"There is this overhanging hedge for all of us right around Covid," CEO Patrik Frisk said during a conference call with analysts. "What we're talking about here is ... pending massive flare-ups of Covid around the world ... so that's, of course, an unknown at this point."

Under Armour said it expects full-year revenue to be down by a high-teen percentage rate. Previously, it had been calling for a drop of 20% to 25% in the second half of the year. Its new outlook, though still a decline, is better than the 25.7% drop that analysts had predicted. The retailer's share price was up more than 6% Friday morning. —Lauren Thomas

Stocks fall, heading for worst week since March

Each of the major U.S. averages lost ground Friday, putting them on pace for their worst weekly drop since March, CNBC's Fred Imbert reports.

The Nasdaq fell 175 points, about 1.5%, the Dow Industrial Average dropped 150 points, about 0.5%, and the S&P 500 fell 27 points, about 0.8%.

Investors are weighing a number of important issues this week, including a wave of big earnings reports, coronavirus relief talks in Washington crumbling and the U.S. election only days away. —Chris Eudaily

Delta pilots' union agrees to pay cuts to avoid furloughs

Delta Air Lines pilots may escape furloughs if they approve a cost-cutting deal the company and the union unveiled late Thursday.

The preliminary agreement protects pilots from furloughs until Jan. 1, 2022 in exchange for a 5% cut to minimum hours. The close to 2,000 pilots who would have been furloughed this fall would get partial pay, 30 hours a month, and wouldn't have to fly.

The airline doesn't expect to furlough any of its other frontline staff after about 18,000 employees, roughly a fifth of Delta's pre-pandemic staff, accepted buyouts and thousands of others took unpaid leave. American and United this month started furloughing more than 30,000 workers combined.

Delta this summer said it planned to furlough 1,941 pilots after the terms of $25 billion in federal aid for the industry expired after Sept. 30. It delayed the decision by a month to continue talks. —Leslie Josephs

Outbreak 'starting to accelerate' across U.S., Gottlieb says

Expect U.S. Covid cases to accelerate in coming weeks: Former FDA chief Dr. Gottlieb
VIDEO4:5004:50
Expect U.S. Covid cases to accelerate in coming weeks: Former FDA chief Dr. Gottlieb

The coronavirus outbreak in the United States is beginning to pick up speed as the country yet again reports record single-day rises in cases, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said.

"We're starting to find ourselves on a steep slope of the epidemic curve, so I think you're going to see cases accelerate," he said on "Squawk Box." "The epidemic doubling time has fallen to about 80 days. So this is starting to accelerate across the country."

He added that the U.S. is "probably three weeks behind where Europe is." Some European countries, including France and Germany, announced this week that they would go into nationwide partial shutdowns again, though they're less restrictive than the measures taken earlier in the spring. —Will Feuer

Disclosure: Dr. Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer, genetic-testing start-up Tempus and biotech company Illumina. He also serves as co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings′ and Royal Caribbean's Healthy Sail Panel.

El Paso, Texas under two-week shutdown

El Paso County in Texas will shutter all non-essential businesses for two weeks in an effort to curb the rise of Covid-19 cases, which has overwhelmed local hospitals, Judge Ricardo Samaniego announced.

"Our hospitals are at capacity. Our medical professionals are overwhelmed. If we don't respond, we will see unprecedented levels of deaths," Samaniego said Thursday evening at a news briefing.

Essential businesses, including grocery stores, schools, child care centers, pharmacies and health care facilities, will remain open, he said, adding that all others will close. He said the order took effect at midnight.

The number of cases and hospitalized patients have been steadily rising in El Paso County. There are currently 14,359 active cases of infection in the county, Samaniego said. —Will Feuer

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