[Get the latest news and updates on the coronavirus in the New York region.]

The virus is disproportionately killing blacks and Hispanics.

Black and Hispanic people in New York City are about twice as likely to die of the virus as white people are, according to preliminary data released by the city on Wednesday.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that the disparities reflected economic inequity and differences in access to health care.

“There are clear inequalities, clear disparities in how this disease is affecting the people of our city,” Mr. de Blasio said. “The truth is that in so many ways the negative effects of coronavirus, the pain it’s causing, the death it’s causing, tracks with other profound health care disparities that we have seen for years and decades.”

Mr. de Blasio and Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the city’s health commissioner, stressed that some of the city’s Hispanic residents might have been discouraged from seeking medical care by the anti-immigrant sentiment that has dominated the national discourse in recent years.

“The overlay of the anti-immigrant rhetoric across this country, I think, has real implications in the health of our community,” Dr. Barbot said.

Mr. Cuomo said on Wednesday that the differences could be partly attributed to some groups having more untreated chronic health problems than others, making them more likely to die of the virus. He also said that black and Hispanic people might also be disproportionately represented in the ranks of workers whose jobs on the front lines of the outbreak put them at risk.

[The virus is killing black and Latino people at twice the rate of whites in N.Y.C.]

City sues three stores it says overcharged for key items.

Three New York City stores were sued on Wednesday for what officials said was their repeated overcharging for face masks, hand sanitizer, cough medicine and other products that are in short supply amid the coronavirus pandemic.