In New York, which saw a record number of deaths, “the bad news is actually terrible.”

New York, the hardest hit state in America, reported its most virus-related deaths in a single day on Wednesday, announcing that another 779 people had died. That brought the state’s virus death toll to 6,268 in New York, which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo noted was more than twice as many people as the state lost in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

“I went through 9/11, I thought in my lifetime I wouldn’t have to see anything like that again — nothing that bad, nothing that tragic,” Mr. Cuomo said.

Mr. Cuomo had begun his daily briefing, which attracts a national audience, saying that he felt “mixed emotions” at the news he had to share. The number of hospitalizations had fallen in recent days, he said, suggesting that social distancing was working and was beginning to flatten the steep curve of the virus’s spread, at least for now. The rates depend not only on the number of new arrivals but also on hospital admission standards, though.

“If we stop what we are doing you will see that curve change,” he warned.

Then he pivoted to a more somber tone. “The bad news isn’t just bad,” he said. “The bad news is actually terrible.”

He said that the staggering death toll could continue to rise even as hospitalization rates were falling, because it reflected people who have been on ventilators for long periods of time.

The virus has ravaged public transit in the New York metropolitan region, where it is needed to transport many doctors, nurses and emergency responders to their jobs. At least 41 transit workers have died, and more than 6,000 more have fallen sick or self-quarantined. Crew shortages have caused over 800 subway delays, many cancellations, and long delays.

And as high as the death toll is, it does not account for some people who filed in their homes. “The blunt truth is coronavirus is driving these very tragic deaths,” Mayor de Blasio, said on CNN on Wednesday morning, referring to rising numbers of people dying at home. “We are talking about 100 to 200 people per day.”

During his midday briefing, Mr. Cuomo said it was “a very real possibility” that some people who died at home were not added to the official tally. Here’s what else he talked about:

• More data was needed to determine why black, Hispanic and poor New Yorkers had been disproportionately affected by the disease, he said. “It always seems that the poorest people pay the highest price,” he said. Black and Hispanic people in New York City are twice as likely to die of the virus as white people, according to preliminary data released on Wednesday by the city.

• He was also asked if the state was too slow to shut down society. “No, no,” he said. “I think New York was early and the actions we took were more dramatic than most.” The Times found that initial efforts by New York officials to stem the outbreak were hampered by their own confused guidance, unheeded warnings, delayed decisions and political infighting.

• Mr. Cuomo expressed reluctance to offer a timeline on when social gatherings could begin again, when asked about New York’s theater industry, which will remain shuttered until at least June. “I wouldn’t use what Broadway thinks as a barometer of anything,” he said.

New York State has now also passed Spain as well as Italy in terms of confirmed cases and has more cases than any single country in the world outside of the United States.

White House and Democrats propose additional emergency funds to help the economy.

A fresh debate in Washington over the next injection of federal dollars needed to rescue the struggling economy was well underway on Wednesday, with Democrats calling for double the $250 billion requested by the Trump administration and pressing for conditions on a new infusion of loans for businesses.

The counterproposal threatened to slow down the emergency aid for distressed businesses, which Senate Republicans had hoped to speed through as early as Thursday during a procedural session without the entire chamber present.

Democratic leaders announced on Wednesday that they wanted another $250 billion for hospitals, states and food aid. And they proposed reserving half of the loan program for businesses owned by farmers, women, people of color and veterans.

In a joint statement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said they supported the administration’s request for an additional $250 billion for the small business loan program, but, they said, $125 billion of those funds should be directed to underserved businesses that might otherwise have trouble securing loans.

The Democratic leaders also said they wanted to add $100 billion for hospitals, community health centers and health systems — in part to shore up testing and the distribution of critical safety gear for health workers on the front lines — as well as $150 billion for state and local governments and a 15 percent increase in food assistance benefits.

In the statement, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer said after the quick infusion of funds, Congress would need to get to work on another economic relief package to “provide transformational relief as the American people weather this assault on their lives and livelihoods.”

Mr. Schumer spoke to Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, on Wednesday about the Democratic proposal, according to Justin Goodman, a spokesman for the minority leader. He said Democrats hoped Republicans would support what they are calling their “Small Business Plus” plan tomorrow in the Senate.

It was unclear whether Republicans would agree to the additions, although some lawmakers warned against doing anything that could delay an infusion of cash that both parties agree is badly needed for small businesses. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, said the Democratic proposal amounted to a “shameful threat to block this funding,” although Democrats have made no such threat, and said it should be dropped “immediately.”

“Our small businesses desperately need help — now,” Mr. Cornyn said.

The W.H.O. director general responds to Trump’s comments with a dire warning on politicization.

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, made an impassioned plea for global solidarity on Wednesday, warning that politicizing the coronavirus pandemic was “playing with fire” and that disunity and finger-pointing would result in “many more body bags.”

Dr. Tedros’s comments came a day after Mr. Trump falsely claimed that the W.H.O. had “missed the call” on the rising threat in China and threatened to withhold American funding for the organization, which exceeds $400 million annually.

“When there are cracks at the national level and global level, that’s when the virus succeeds,” Dr. Tedros said, though he did not cite Mr. Trump by name. “Please quarantine politicizing Covid. That’s the way if we want to win.”

“We shouldn’t waste time pointing fingers. We need to unite,” he added.

While some critics have called on Dr. Tedros to resign, he said he was not deterred.

“We will do everything we can to serve humanity,” Dr. Tedros said. “We’re not angels. We are human beings. So we make mistakes, like other human beings.”

A jail in Chicago is now the largest-known source of U.S. infections.

The Cook County jail in Chicago, a sprawling facility that is among the largest jails in the nation, has emerged as the largest-known source of U.S. coronavirus infections, according to data compiled by The Times.

At least 387 cases can be linked to the jail — more than have been connected to the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, a nursing home in Kirkland, Wash., or the cluster of cases centered on New Rochelle, N.Y.

As of Tuesday, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office, which operates the jail, said 272 inmates and 115 staff members had tested positive. But because the vast majority of the jail’s 5,000 inmates have not been tested, corrections officers have said the numbers are likely far higher. In late March, the jail had just two diagnoses.

The outbreak appears to confirm the concerns of many health officials, who warned that America’s overcrowded and unsanitary jails and prisons could be a major source of spread. Those warnings prompted authorities across the country to release thousands of inmates to try to slow the infection, save lives and preserve medical resources.

Still, hundreds of diagnoses have been confirmed at local, state and federal correctional facilities — almost certainly an undercount, given a lack of testing and the virus’s rapid spread — leading to hunger strikes in immigrant detention centers and demands for more protection from prison employee unions.

In Cook County, officials released hundreds of inmates early — all of whom had been convicted of nonviolent crimes like drug possession and disorderly conduct. Judges are continuing to examine the cases of each inmate to determine if bonds can be lowered for certain people. That would allow dozens, perhaps hundreds, more people to be released, officials say.

The sheriff, Thomas J. Dart, has set up a quarantine area for those who have tested positive and another to monitor those showing symptoms. The most serious patients are being taken to a hospital.

But inmates and corrections officers have complained that the jail’s safety measures are inadequate. A protest that included family members of inmates was held outside the jail on Tuesday. Advocates and family members have also filed a federal lawsuit seeking the early release of older inmates and those who have chronic medical conditions like respiratory illnesses and diabetes, which may make them particularly vulnerable.

The union representing corrections officers at the jail has complained that the sheriff’s office failed to provide adequate protective equipment to the jail’s staff and has provided only cursory instruction and training to avoid contracting the virus and limiting its spread.

In New York City, jails like Rikers Island are also seeing infection rates grow exponentially. City and state officials have promised the mass release of inmates to stop the spread. But many say they are not moving quickly enough, putting inmates, staff and the city at risk. Watch more on the issue:

Bernie Sanders dropped out of the presidential race.

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont dropped out of the Democratic presidential race on Wednesday, concluding a quest for the White House that began five years ago in relative obscurity but ultimately elevated him as a champion of the working class, a standard-bearer of American liberalism and the leader of a self-styled political revolution.

“I cannot in good conscience continue to mount a campaign that cannot win and which would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour,” Mr. Sanders said over a live stream Wednesday morning.

Mr. Sanders’s exit from the race establishes former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as the presumptive nominee to challenge President Trump, and leaves the progressive movement without a prominent voice in the 2020 race.

In a race reshaped, and eclipsed, by the escalating coronavirus crisis, Mr. Sanders faced no realistic path to the nomination after a series of lopsided losses to Mr. Biden, beginning in South Carolina in late February and culminating with a string of losses last month in crucial states like Michigan and Florida.

With the public health emergency preventing both candidates from holding in-person campaign events, Mr. Sanders spent the last several weeks on the sidelines, delivering addresses via live stream and making occasional television appearances, while facing calls from fellow Democrats to exit the race and help unify the party behind Mr. Biden. Though Mr. Biden had been careful not to pressure Mr. Sanders, he had begun to move ahead as if the race were over, taking steps, for example, to begin his search for a running mate.

New Jersey postponed its presidential primary from June 2 to July 7 because of the pandemic, but the decision by Mr. Sanders will most likely make the contest irrelevant.

Mr. Cuomo, in a news conference on Wednesday, addressed the coming New York primary election that has been postponed until June. “By executive order, all New Yorkers can vote absentee on June 23rd,” he said.

“We are saying that absentee voting is an option,” Mr. Cuomo said. “Not a necessity.”

Several other states and state parties have pushed to conduct their primaries entirely by mail this year. But there has not always been agreement, or logistical success: In Wisconsin, state Republicans blocked efforts to extend deadlines for absentee ballots, and many voters said the ballots they requested never arrived in the mail.

General Motors will send 30,000 ventilators to the federal stockpile.

After weeks of drama that included Mr. Trump’s unproven accusation that General Motors was trying to “rip off” the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Wednesday that the carmaker would provide 30,000 ventilators to the nation’s stockpile for $489 million by the end of August.

The first batch — 6,132 of the machines — will be delivered by June 1, after most of the peak demand is expected to have passed from the first wave of cases at hospitals. But even that initial number amounts to roughly two-thirds of what is now believed to be left in the stockpile after thousands of ventilators were sent to New York and other hard-hit cities.

In an early-morning statement, the secretary of health and human services, Alex M. Azar II, said the contract would be among the first during the crisis issued under the Defense Production Act, a Korean War-era law that essentially allows the United States to assure that it is the first customer in line — and that it can control the price it is being charged.

The formal contract comes two weeks after the White House pulled back from announcing what was intended to be a $1 billion contract for upward of 80,000 ventilators. Mr. Trump had accused the company of “wasting time,” and he also attacked Mary T. Barra, the company’s chief executive, with whom he had clashed last year over the closure of a G.M. facility.

But Mr. Trump was essentially ordering the company to do what it had already announced it was doing, even in the absence of a contract.

Federal and local officials are concerned about cases in the D.C. region.

As cases keep rising in and around the nation’s capital, stories of residents not complying with social distancing guidelines have been prevalent. On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Wednesday, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House task force, said federal officials were “concerned about the metro area of Washington and Baltimore.”

As of Tuesday, there were 1,440 cases in Washington, and 27 deaths. The district’s latest data shows that nearly 60 percent of the dead were African-American people, though they make up about 46 percent of its population.

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser said that she was worried about the disproportionate impact the virus is having on black people — a concern that has also emerged in other places across the country.

“We know that underlying conditions, like hypertension and diabetes and heart disease, this virus is particularly hard on,” Ms. Bowser said on MSNBC on Tuesday. “And we know that African-Americans are living with those underlying conditions every day, probably in larger proportions than most of our fellow Americans.”

The district’s stay-at-home order went into effect on April 1, nearly a month after its first case was confirmed, on March 7. Like other orders, it makes exceptions for grocery shopping, medical appointments, and “allowable recreational activities,” like walking and riding bikes.

Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the nonvoting delegate for the district, wrote to the acting director of the National Park Service on Tuesday requesting the closure of the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials amid reports that they had been attracting crowds, making it hard to maintain social distancing.

“Closure would protect the public and NPS employees, including U.S. Park Police officers,” the letter from Ms. Norton said. “Federal agencies need to lead by example and do everything possible to flatten the curve.”

Under fire for trades during pandemic, senator says she will divest from individual stocks.

Seeking to move past allegations that she has tried to profit from the coronavirus crisis, Senator Kelly Loeffler, Republican of Georgia, announced on Wednesday that she and her husband would divest from all individual stocks and move the money into mutual and exchange-traded funds.

Ms. Loeffler, a freshman senator, has faced weeks of attacks from her political rivals in both parties and scrutiny from the news media about stock trades worth millions of dollars made earlier this year in her name, before the pandemic roiled the financial markets. Ms. Loeffler’s critics questioned whether she and a handful of other lawmakers who actively traded stocks during the same period had used nonpublic information they had received from their jobs to make money or avoid the same financial losses as other investors.

Ms. Loeffler continued on Wednesday to adamantly deny that, insisting that she had done nothing wrong, legally or ethically. The stock trades were all made by outside financial advisers at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Sepio Capital and Wells Fargo, who independently manage her investments, she said, adding that she was not privy to any meaningful nonpublic information because of her job in the Senate.

Still, the decision seemed to be an acknowledgement that Ms. Loeffler’s vast wealth, once thought to be an asset for her campaign, had become a political distraction and a liability as she seeks to hold her Senate seat this fall facing Democratic and Republican challengers. Ms. Loeffler, a former businesswoman with no political experience, was appointed to fill Georgia’s vacant Senate seat late last year.

“I’m doing this because this transparency is being abused for political gain, and the steps I’ve taken to distance myself from these accounts are being ignored,” Ms. Loeffler said, referring to the periodic financial statements that senators are required to make public. “I left the private sector to serve the people of Georgia, not make a profit.”

The virus has found a foothold in rural America.

The coronavirus has officially reached more than two-thirds of the country’s rural counties, with one in 10 reporting at least one death. Doctors and elected officials are warning that a late-arriving wave of illness could overwhelm rural communities that are older, poorer and sicker than much of the country, and already dangerously short on medical help.

“Everybody never really thought it would get to us,” said Grace Rhodes, 18, who is from Southern Illinois and is studying to become a nurse. “A lot of people are in denial.”

But many rural doctors, leaders and health experts worry that they will have fewer hospital beds, ventilators and nurses to handle any onslaught.

Coronavirus illnesses and deaths are still overwhelmingly concentrated in cities and suburbs, and new rural cases have not exploded at the same rate as in some cities. But they are growing fast. This week, the case rate in rural areas was more than double what it was six days earlier.

Stocks on Wall Street are higher as investors weigh latest economic data.

Stocks in the U.S. climbed on Wednesday, as investors weighed data showing the extent of the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic against signs of progress in the effort to contain it.

The S&P 500 rose more than 2 percent, while major indexes in Europe were slightly lower.

U.S. stocks had ended slightly lower on Tuesday after a rally throughout the day. Through Tuesday, the S&P 500 was up nearly 19 percent from its March 23 low. It’s still more than 21 percent below its high, reached on Feb. 19.

Investors had in recent days found solace in signs that the outbreak was peaking in some of the hardest-hit parts of the United States and Europe.

The Trump administration will release immigrant detainees at risk from the virus.

Federal immigration officials have begun releasing detained immigrants who are thought to be at high risk of contracting the virus, to lessen the risk of contagion in the nation’s immigration detention centers — a surprising decision for the Trump administration, which has pursued an aggressive immigration enforcement agenda.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has faced mounting pressure from lawmakers and immigrant advocates to address the health risk posed by the virus to the more than 40,000 adults and children being detained across the country on civil immigration charges. Jenny Burke, a spokeswoman for the agency, said on Tuesday that ICE had instructed its field offices to identify individuals who are considered particularly vulnerable, such as those who were over age 60 or pregnant.

Ms. Burke said the agency had thus far identified 600 such detainees, and that 160 detainees have been released.

The announcement of the releases, first reported by Buzzfeed News, comes after a series of ongoing lawsuits have prompted the release of various ICE detainees facing health problems such as cancer, diabetes and asthma.

ICE has said it is still conducting some high priority arrests, despite the pandemic.

California buys millions of masks and L.A. orders residents to cover their faces.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said late Tuesday that the state had secured nearly 200 million masks a month for health care workers, an extraordinary number amid a global shortage of masks.

A spokesman for Mr. Newsom said the state would buy millions of new masks from overseas manufacturers in two separate deals with a California nonprofit and a California company. The spokesman did not disclose the names of the nonprofit of the company, or the price.

Demand for masks has far outstripped supply in recent weeks, driving some prices 10 times higher than before the pandemic.

In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti stepped up precautions, ordering all residents to wear masks when visiting essential businesses starting Friday. “Cover up, save a life — it’s that simple,” Mr. Garcetti said.

Time is of the essence for disinfecting your home and hands.

You’ve been cleaning your home and washing your hands all these years, and probably never stopped to consider whether you were doing it effectively. But time matters when it comes to fully disinfecting your household surfaces and your skin.

In the case of some disinfectants, it can take up to 10 minutes for them to fully work. As for your hands? Scrubbing for a full 20 seconds is the way to go.

Food banks in America squeezed by rising hunger and dwindling resources.

Demand for food assistance in the United States is rising at an unprecedented rate, as millions of Americans find themselves out of work and school closures mean that many families who counted on them for free or subsidized meals need to turn elsewhere.

The surge in need is coming just as food banks face shortages of both donated food and volunteer workers.

It’s a nationwide phenomena:

• At Food Bank for the Heartland in Omaha, the amount of food donated for March dropped by nearly half. The food bank typically purchases $73,000 of food in a month this time of year but has spent $675,000 in the past four weeks.

• In Washington State and Louisiana, the National Guard has been called in to help pack food boxes and ensure that the distributions run smoothly.

• Feeding America, the nation’s largest network of food banks, with more than 200 affiliates, has projected a $1.4 billion shortfall in the next six months alone.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Stacy Dean, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research organization in Washington, D.C. She has studied food security for more than a quarter century. “People love the phrase ‘the perfect storm,’” she added, “but nothing is built for this.”

Here’s what else is happening in the global fight against the virus.

Boris Johnson is “responding to treatment” but remains in intensive care.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain is stable and “responding to treatment” for the virus, but remains in intensive care, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

Mr. Johnson was admitted to St. Thomas’ Hospital in London on Sunday and transferred the next day to the intensive care unit, where he received oxygen but was not put on a ventilator. He is not suffering from pneumonia, his aides said on Tuesday, but his illness has brought concerns about the government’s ability to make major decisions in the midst of the outbreak.

Downing Street declined on Wednesday to comment on what treatment Mr. Johnson was receiving or to say who was treating him, though it repeated previous statements that he is breathing without assistance apart from receiving oxygen.

The office also noted that he was in good spirits but made clear that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, initially asked to stand in for Mr. Johnson “where necessary,” was now doing so full time.

Passover will be different this year.

Religious ritual holds power not only because it connects people gathered in one space — it also connects people across time.

For generations Jewish families have gathered for the first night of Passover to recount the 10 plagues from the Book of Exodus — frogs, pestilence, death — and to remember how God delivered the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt thousands of years ago.

Jews observed the Seder in the fifth century B.C. on the Egyptian island of Elephantine, and they observed it in 1943 as German troops liquidated the Warsaw ghetto. And on Wednesday in homes across the United States, families will once again light candles at the Seder table and ask why this night is different from all other nights.

Of course, with a literal plague in their midst, families cannot meet in person this year and may even tweak their Haggadahs — the text that is annually read aloud — to reflect the moment. But the power of Passover remains, perhaps even more so as a symbol of perseverance.

The Times asked families around the country to share reflections on the Passover story in this moment. Their words speak to the power of memory, the meaning of plague, and how crockpots and cookbooks can connect us with loved ones of generations past and future.

Reporting was contributed by Alan Blinder, Eileen Sullivan, Michael Cooper, Jonah Engel Bromwich, Elizabeth Dias, Caitlin Dickerson, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Andy Newman, Jack Nicas, Stacy Cowley, Colin Moynihan, J. David Goodman, Jack Healy, Sabrina Tavernise, Robert Gebeloff, Weiyi Cai, Adeel Hassan, David E. Sanger, Emily Cochrane, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Conor Dougherty, Marc Santora, Dan Levin, Matt Stevens, Charlie Savage, Peter Baker, Timothy Williams, Danielle Ivory, William Grimes, Lisa Friedman, Julia Echikson, Patricia Mazzei, Nicholas Kulish, John Eligon, Audra D. S. Burch, Dionne Searcey, Richard A. Oppel Jr., Vanessa Swales and Nicholas Fandos.