FILE PHOTO: San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly poses at the bank’s headquarters in San Francisco, California, U.S., July 16, 2019. REUTERS/Ann Saphir

(Reuters) - A surge in U.S. job losses last month that’s expected to accelerate and is forecast by some to lift the unemployment rate to more than 30% is a result of measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus that in themselves should set the stage for a faster economic recovery, San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said on Friday.

“Whether you put a 30% number to it or a 10% number to it, these are big numbers, over 10 million people filing for unemployment insurance,” Daly said in an interview with CNN, adding that the sobering data are a result of widespread stay-at-home orders that in past pandemics have been effective.

“Those numbers don’t stay big if we do these things well; whatever the number turns out to be on unemployment, it dissipates faster ...that’s what we are trying to accomplish, having that be temporary and not be permanent.”