Some 778,000 workers lost their jobs and filed for unemployment insurance last week, the Department of Labor said Wednesday.

This is an uptick of 30,000 compared to the previous week, and the second consecutive week that the weekly tally has risen after it was on the decline for months.

The DOL also said Wednesday that more than 20 million people were still receiving some form of unemployment benefits through all programs as of the week ending Nov. 7. For the comparable week in 2019, that figure was 1.5 million.

The latest economic data from the DOL comes as new virus cases surge across the country, and highlight a slow economic recovery. It also comes, however, as Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new milestone of trading above 30,000 on Tuesday -- a further indication that the stock market remains divorced from the economic pain millions of Americans still face as the coronavirus crisis rages on.

ABC News’ Catherine Thorbecke contributed to this report.

America's top infectious disease expert is urging the nation to keep indoor gatherings as small as possible over Thanksgiving to prevent further spread of the novel coronavirus.

"We all know how difficult that is because this is such a beautiful, traditional holiday. But by making that sacrifice, you're going to prevent people from getting infected," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Wednesday on "Good Morning America."

"A sacrifice now could save lives and illness and make the future much brighter as we get through this," he continued. "We're going to get through this. Vaccines are right on the horizon. If we can just hang in there a bit longer and continue to do the simple mitigation things that we're talking about all the time -- the masks, the distancing, the avoiding crowds, particularly indoor. If we do those things, we're going to get through it. So that's my final plea before the holiday."

Fauci, a leading member of the current White House coronavirus task force, warned of "yet another surge" of COVID-19 infections if people don't heed his advice over the holiday.

Although he acknowledged that the country's current surge in cases is driven by larger indoor gatherings such as bars, Fauci noted that "there still is transmission among gatherings that appear to be relatively innocent."

"Now, I don't mean two, three, four people in a room. We're talking about when people might have a modest size and let their guard down," he added. "When you stay away from the bars, when you stay away from the big, congregate settings, there still is a danger if you bring people into the home who are not part of the immediate household. There is a risk there."

Fauci also said he is "greatly" concerned by the number of people who are already showing hesitancy to taking a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available. He noted that "independent bodies of people who, in fact, have no allegiance to an administration or to a company" will be charged with deciding whether the vaccine is both safe and effective for the public.

"The process by which the vaccines were made were a standard process that was rapid because of exquisite scientific advances and the investment of an extraordinary amount money. It did not compromise safety and it did not compromise scientific integrity," he said. "That's what the public needs to understand, that the process is transparent and its independent."

The solution to the coronavirus pandemic, Fauci said, will be "a combination of public health measures and a safe and effective vaccine."

"It would really be terrible if we have, which we do, three now and maybe more highly efficacious vaccines and people don't take it," he added. "We could crush this outbreak exactly the way we did years ago with smallpox, with polio and with measles. It is doable."

The global acceleration in COVID-19 cases has slowed down over the past week, with around 4 million new cases and over 67,000 additional deaths from the disease reported worldwide. However, Europe remains the largest contributor to those cases and deaths, according to the latest weekly epidemiological report from the World Health Organization.

The report, released Tuesday evening, said the number of new cases in the European region declined by 6% in the last week, after a decline of 10% in the previous week, "in a sign that the reintroduction of stricter public health and social measures in a number of countries over the last few weeks is beginning to slow down transmission."

The European region still accounts for 44% of global new cases and 49% of global new deaths. While new cases have declined, new deaths in the region have continued to rise, according to the report.

Italy reported the highest number of new cases in the European region and the third-highest globally, but the country still saw a slight decline of 3% in the last week. The number of new deaths in Italy increased by 26%.

"The northern Italy provinces of Valle d’Aosta, Bolzano and Piemonte report the highest number of cases," the report said. "Media reports have highlighted concerns of the large number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care, and the growing number of health worker infections, straining local healthcare capacities."

The number of new cases in the United Kingdom fell by 13% from last week, the first weekly decline since late August. But the number of new deaths in the country remained similar to the previous week.

"The United Kingdom currently has the fifth- highest number of new cases in the European Region, and the eighth highest number worldwide," the report said, "however, per capita case incidence remains lower than many other countries in the Region.

Russia registered a record 507 new fatalities from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, according to the country's coronavirus response headquarters.

It's the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic that Russia has reported more than 500 deaths from the disease in a single day.

Russia also confirmed 23,675 new cases of COVID-19 over the past day. The cumulative total now stands at 2,162,503 confirmed cases, including 37,538 deaths, according to the coronavirus response headquarters.

The Eastern European nation of 145 million people has the fifth-highest tally of COVID-19 cases in the world, behind only the United States, India, Brazil and France, according to a real-time count kept by Johns Hopkins University.

Despite the growing number of infections and deaths, Russian authorities have repeatedly said they have no plans to impose another nationwide lockdown.

ABC News' Alina Lobzina contributed to this report.

The actual number of people infected with the novel coronavirus in the United States reached nearly 53 million at the end of September, according to a model developed by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The scientists estimated the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 in the U.S. population by taking the laboratory-confirmed case counts that were reported nationally and adjusting them for sources of under-detection based on testing practices in inpatient and outpatient settings. Preliminary estimates using the model found that 2.4 million hospitalizations, 44.8 million symptomatic illnesses and 52.9 million total infections may have occurred through Sept. 30.

"This indicates that approximately 84% of the U.S. population has not yet been infected and thus most of the country remains at risk, despite already high rates of hospitalization," the scientists wrote in a report published in the Nov. 25 issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

There were 6.9 million laboratory-confirmed cases of of domestically-acquired infections that were detected and reported nationally through Sept. 30. Since then, the CDC's tally has increased to nearly 12.5 million. Based on the model's ratio, the true estimated total would now be more than 95 million.