For these states, the record number of claims in recent weeks has not only presented a logistical challenge, but also demanded an abrupt change of approach: Systems built to root out fraud must now presume that millions have legitimately lost their jobs.

Related: The Labor Department reported today that 3.8 million new unemployment claims were filed last week, bringing the six-week total to more than 30 million. Here are the latest financial updates.

Another angle: U.S. gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services output, fell at a 4.8 percent annual rate in the first quarter, the worst such drop since 2008. Economists expect the current quarter will bring a scale of contraction unseen since the Great Depression: 30 percent or more. (The bad news has not deterred the markets.)

Administration is said to seek link to Wuhan lab

Trump administration officials have pushed U.S. intelligence agencies to hunt for evidence to support an unsubstantiated theory that the coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, current and former American officials told The Times.

Republicans have sought to blame China for the pandemic. Scientists say the overwhelming probability is that the virus passed from animal to human in a nonlaboratory setting, as was the case with H.I.V., Ebola and SARS.

Response: Spokesmen for the White House and the National Security Council declined to comment. An official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that the intelligence agencies had not agreed on an origin theory but were tracking down information.