There were 787,000 new unemployment claims filed in one week, according to the Labor Department. This number is slightly lower than last week's, but still higher than anything seen before the pandemic.

There are currently 19,563,905 total claims being filed for unemployment through different government programs.

ABC News’ Zunaira Zaki contributed to this report.

The U.S. has seen a record high daily death toll for the second day in a row, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

There were 3,744 COVID-19 deaths reported Wednesday, the highest since start of the pandemic, surpassing the previous record of 3,725 deaths reported Tuesday.

In the wake of the Trump administration falling short on its vaccination goal, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told "Good Morning America" Thursday, “We always knew that this was going to take a while to ramp up."

"The curve is rapidly increasing, in terms of number of people being vaccinated," Adams said. "So we shouldn't extrapolate from what happened yesterday to what's going to happen six months from now. What we should do is make sure that curve continues to go up and continue to support our state and public health departments, which is what we are doing."

The Trump administration had promised that 20 million people would be vaccinated by the end of the year.

As of Wednesday morning, 2,794,588 Americans had received vaccine doses and 12.4 million doses had been distributed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"There's vaccines manufactured. There's vaccines allocated. There’s vaccines delivered. And then there's vaccines put in arms,” Adams said. “From a federal perspective, we are on track to have 20 million people able to be vaccinated, doses on the ground, by the end of next week.”

Adams also urged Americans to celebrate New Year's Eve virtually.

“This has been a marathon, but we don't want to trip at the finish line,” Adams said. “We want to have a normal New Year’s next year, we want as many of our loved ones and family and friends as possible to be able to enjoy that New Year’s in 2021. The way we do that is by pulling together and sacrificing one more time so that we can ramp up these vaccinations and put this virus away for good.”

ABC News’ Ben Gittleson contributed to this report.

The U.S. reported 3,903 deaths on Wednesday, a new record for daily fatalities, according to The COVID Tracking Project.

Hospitalizations also reached a record high with 125,220 and there were 225,671 new cases, according to the tracking project.

"Holiday reporting delays are still markedly affecting testing, case, and deaths figures," the group tweeted.

The COVID Tacking Project said the death count included a backlog of 200 fatalities from Washington state.

"Even without this backlog, today's total would still be the highest to date," the tracking project tweeted.

It warned that more data disruptions are expected with the New Year's Day weekend.

New Zealand will require all travelers from the United States and the United Kingdom to test negative for COVID-19 before departing for the country.

The new rule, which will come into effect Jan. 15, is in addition to a requirement that was implemented from Dec. 31 for passengers arriving from both nations to be tested within 24 hours of their arrival in New Zealand and to remain isolated until a test result is available. The U.S. and the U.K. are two of the hardest hit countries in the coronavirus pandemic.

The latest measures "are extra precautionary steps which provide another layer of protection for New Zealand from COVID-19," New Zealand's Ministry of Health said in a statement Sunday.

New Zealand, an island nation of 5 million people in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, has reported at least 2,181 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, including 25 deaths, according to the latest data from the health ministry.