Spain eyes resuming tourism; Sweden ‘could have done better’

Public health specialists are reviving conversations about a potential vaccine, as mass protests following the police killing of George Floyd continue in many U.S. cities. 

White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that he’s concerned about the “durability” of a potential coronavirus vaccine, adding that there’s a chance it might not provide long-term immunity. And former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC Wednesday that any effective vaccine will likely still be seasonal. 

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 6.4 million
• Global deaths: At least 380,764
• U.S. cases: More than 1.83 million
• U.S. deaths: At least 106,181

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

7:32 a.m. ET — Any coronavirus vaccine that proves to be safe and effective will still probably only provide immunity for a limited amount of time, maybe “up to a year,” former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said.

His comments come after White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday he worries about the “durability” of a potential coronavirus vaccine, saying there’s a chance it may not provide long-term immunity.

“This is probably going to be a seasonal vaccine,” Gottlieb said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “It’s probably a vaccine that we’re going to need to take every year. Dr. Fauci’s right, the immunity’s not going to be long-term in the form of a smallpox vaccine or a polio vaccine where you get the vaccine once and you’re protected for the rest of your life or most of your life.”

Eventually, people might be asked to take the coronavirus vaccine annually along with the flu vaccine, Gottlieb said. —Will Feuer

Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and is a member of the boards of Pfizer and biotech company Illumina.

7:02 a.m. ET — Sweden’s chief epidemiologist, who advocated a no-lockdown strategy to combat the coronavirus crisis in the country, has admitted that more should have been done to tackle the epidemic.

“Yes, I think we could have done better in what we did in Sweden, clearly,” Anders Tegnell, state epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency, told Swedish radio, according to a Reuters report.

“If we were to run into the same disease, knowing exactly what we know about it today, I think we would end up doing something in between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world has done,” he said.

Unlike most of Europe, Sweden decided against implementing a full lockdown of businesses and schools when the coronavirus began to spread in Europe in March, opting instead for softer, largely voluntary measures. —Holly Ellyatt