WATCH: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser gives coronavirus update

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser held a news conference May 8 on the area’s response to the novel coronavirus.

Watch the mayor’s remarks in the player above.

The coronavirus crisis has sent the U.S. unemployment rate surging to 14.7%, a level last seen when the country was in the throes of the Depression and President Franklin D. Roosevelt was assuring Americans that the only thing to fear was fear itself.

The Labor Department said today that 20.5 million jobs vanished in April in the worst monthly loss on record, triggered by the coast-to-coast shutdowns of factories, stores, offices and other businesses.

The breathtakingly swift losses are certain to intensify the push-pull across the U.S. over how and when to ease the stay-at-home restrictions and the social-distancing rules.