Biden says he would require masks; Russia reports lowest daily new cases since April

The White House coronavirus task force is slated to hold its first news briefing in nearly two months Friday, as new coronavirus cases continue to surge across large parts of the country. Vice President Mike Pence will lead the briefing, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, but the briefing will take place at HHS offices rather than at the White House, where past briefings have been held.

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 9.62 million
• Global deaths: At least 489,731
• U.S. cases: More than 2.42 million
• U.S. deaths: At least 124,415

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

8:18 a.m. ET — The number of active mortgage forbearance plans rose by 79,000 in the past week, according to Black Knight, a mortgage data and technology firm, after three straight weeks of declines.

The recent increase in mortgage bailouts erased around half of the improvement in numbers since the peak of May 22, CNBC’s Diana Olick reports. As of Tuesday, 4.68 million homeowners were in forbearance plans, which is 8.8{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} of all active mortgages, up from 8.7{3c4481f38fc19dde56b7b1f4329b509c88239ba5565146922180ec5012de023f} last week.

These plans allow homeowners to delay mortgage payments for at least three months. The surge indicates continuing struggles of homeowners amid the pandemic. —Suzanne Blake

8:11 a.m. ET — As cases of the coronavirus spike in major cities in the United States, some alternative data sources that track hourly employees show that the jobs recovery may be slowing.

Data from Homebase, a scheduling firm that works with many small and medium-sized businesses in the service sector, shows that employment may have declined over the past week in some areas, with fewer employees working on June 24 than the average from June 15-19 in the majority of states.

The Homebase data is not a representative sample of the U.S. labor force, but it does mirror the weekly jobless claims data, which showed that another 1.48 million people filed for unemployment last week. —Jesse Pound

8:08 a.m. ET — Unions representing tens of thousands of airline employees want $32 billion in additional government aid to maintain their jobs through the end of March 2021.

While air travel is now higher than the more-than-five-decade lows hit in April, demand continues to suffer because of coronavirus.

Airlines received that aid amount under the $2.2 trillion CARES Act in March on the condition they wouldn’t lay off workers through Oct. 1. An additional $32 billion could save jobs through the end of March, the labor unions said. Congress is likely to begin negotiations on the next major coronavirus relief bill in July. —Leslie Josephs, Lauren Hirsch

7:14 a.m. ET — Russia reported its lowest daily rise of new coronavirus infections since late April, Reuters reported, as the tally of Covid-19 cases climbed by 6,800 to 620,794.

The country’s coronavirus response center said this was the first time Russia had reported fewer than 7,000 new cases of the virus over a 24-hour period since late April.

To date, Russia has reported the third-highest number of Covid-19 infections in the world, behind only the U.S. and Brazil, respectively. —Sam Meredith

7:11 a.m. ET — Presumptive Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden would require that Americans wear masks nationwide if he were president, he said in a taped interview with KDKA in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

“The one thing we do know is these masks make a gigantic difference,” he said while wearing a mask. “I would insist that everybody out in public be wearing that mask. Anyone to reopen would have to make sure that they walked into a business that had masks.”

Asked specifically whether he would use executive authority to mandate masks, Biden responded, “Yes. Yes, I would.”

“I would do everything possible to make it required that people had to wear masks in public,” he said.

Biden’s stance on masks as an effective public health intervention stands in stark contrast to that of President Donald Trump, who has avoided appearing in public with a mask and has said that he thinks some people wear masks to signal disapproval of him. —Will Feuer

Read CNBC’s previous coronavirus live coverage here: Texas and Florida pause reopening more business as cases surge