The coronavirus outbreak continues to take a brutal toll on American workers with new jobless claims hitting a record high for the second week in a row.

The US Labor Department on Thursday reported that seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims surged to more than 6.6 million for the week that ended March 28. .

The increase comes after more than 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits in the week that ended March 21 as businesses closed and many cities and states issued stay-at-home orders in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus. .

This means that 10 million Americans in total have filed for unemployment in the past two weeks.

In sharp contrast, just 282,000 Americans filed initial jobless claims for the week that ended March 14.

The World Health Organization on March 11 declared the outbreak a pandemic