UN Secretary General on US suspending WHO funding

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 1.97 million
• Global deaths: At least 125,678
• Most cases reported: United States (602,989), Spain (172,541), Italy (162,488), France (131,361), Germany (131,359)

The data above was compiled by Johns Hopkins University as of 7:43 a.m. Beijing time. 

All times below are in Beijing time.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, along with government ministers and public service chief executives, will take a 20% pay cut for the next six months, reported Reuters. 

Ardern said in a news conference that the move was recognition of “New Zealanders who are reliant on wage subsidies, taking a pay cut, and losing their jobs as a result of the global pandemic,” according to the report. 

New Zealand has reported 1,078 confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease, of which nine have died, according to its Ministry of Health. 

The government has implemented lockdown measures that include closing down offices and schools. It said it plans to decide on April 20 whether to extend those measures. — Yen Nee Lee

For many Chinese companies, their dreams of listing in New York are only on hold.

Some high-profile Chinese stocks listed in the U.S. such as Luckin Coffee, the self-proclaimed Starbucks rival in China, have been rocked following allegations by short-sellers that these companies faked their numbers, accusations that in some cases are now being internally investigated.

The reports are the latest challenge for Chinese initial public offerings in New York, on top of U.S.-China trade tensions and the impact of the coronavirus. 

But some in the cross-border IPO business say the listing plans are just delayed, not canceled. — Evelyn Cheng

South Korea reported another 27 cases of the coronavirus and three additional deaths, according to the latest data from the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That bring the country’s total confirmed cases to 10,591 and fatalities to 225 since the outbreak, said KCDC.

South Korea holds legislative elections on Wednesday under strict safety guidelines. Some 14,000 polling stations around the country were disinfected before allowing voters to enter, reported Reuters. Voters are also required to wear a mask and have their temperatures checked upon arrival at their polling stations, said the report. — Yen Nee Lee

Guterres referred to comments he had made on April 8 where he said the pandemic remains one of the most dangerous challenges the world has ever faced, describing it as a “human crisis with severe health and socio-economic consequences.”

He said that when the outbreak is under control, there “must be a time to look back fully to understand how such a disease emerged and spread its devastation so quickly across the globe, and how all those involved reacted to the crisis.”

“But now is not that time,” Guterres said.

“It is also not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus,” he added, and called on the international community to work together to stop the virus. — Saheli Roy Choudhury

China’s National Health Commission said there were 46 additional cases of infection, of which 36 were attributed to travelers from overseas. Most of the travelers are likely Chinese nationals since China closed its borders to most foreigners late last month. The official report did not specify their nationalities.

There was one death reported in Hubei province. China also said there were 57 new cases of asymptomatic infections, where a person tests positive for the virus but does not demonstrate any of the usual symptoms associated with it. 

A total of 82,295 confirmed cases have been reported by China and 3,342 people have died since the outbreak started. — Saheli Roy Choudhury

Major League Baseball says 27 teams will participate in an antibody testing study with Stanford University and the University of Southern California.

The test used in the study is not diagnostic and not the same test used in healthcare settings to identify the presence of the virus. Rather, it measures whether people have been exposed. The study will use rapid antibody tests, the league confirmed to CNBC. The Athletic previously reported that 10,000 employees from those teams have volunteered to participate.

The goal of the study is to get a sense of the prevalence of Covid-19 infections among the U.S. population in hopes of helping researchers figure out how many people might have been exposed but suffered no symptoms. That information could help public officials determine when it’s safe to ease up on restrictions meant to curb the spread of the pandemic. — Jennifer Elias

At least 125,678 people around the world have succumbed to the coronavirus that was first reported in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. That’s according to the latest information from Johns Hopkins University. 

Hopkins data also showed the virus has infected more than 1.97 million people. The United States has the highest number of cases, with more than 600,000 patients.

Spain, Italy, France and Germany, with at least 130,000 cases in each of the European countries. The United Kingdom also reported a high number of cases — with reported cases climbing to over 94,000 and fatalities topping 12,100. — Saheli Roy Choudhury

Singapore’s health ministry said as of 14 April noon, there were 334 new confirmed cases of Covid-19. Many of them are linked to infection clusters in dormitories that house foreign workers.

The inhabitants of those dormitories are typically men from other Asian countries who carry out labor-intensive construction jobs in order to support their families back home. 

The city-state reported its highest single-day jump in cases a day earlier when there were 386 additional cases.

There have been 3,252 confirmed cases since the start of the outbreak; 611 patients have been cured and discharged from hospitals and community isolation facilities and 10 people in Singapore have succumbed to the illness. — Saheli Roy Choudhury, Ted Kemp

All times below are in Eastern time.

President Donald Trump said that he believes some states will be able to lift the strict social distancing measures that have strained their economies before the end of April.

“The plans to reopen the country are close to being finalized,” Trump said at a press briefing on the virus in the Rose Garden.

“I will be speaking to all 50 governors very shortly,” Trump said, “And I will then be authorizing each individual governor of each individual state to implement a reopening and a very powerful reopening plan of their state at a time and in a manner as most appropriate.”

“The day will be very close because certain states as you know are in a much different condition and are in a much different place than other states. It’s going to be very very close. Maybe even before the date of May 1st,” he said. — Kevin Breuninger

The Trump administration will halt funding to the World Health Organization as it evaluates the agency’s “role in severely mismanaging” the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump announced.

“Today I’m instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus,” Trump said at a press conference.

Trump criticized the international agency’s response to the outbreak, saying “one of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations.” — Berkeley Lovelace Jr., Noah Higgins-Dunn