More than a decade after the financial crisis, at a time when experts agree that the central bank’s 2008 efforts helped prevent the United States from experiencing a second Great Depression, the Fed is still regularly blasted for its efforts to rescue banks.

But the coronavirus crisis is fundamentally different. The financial crisis was a growth slowdown that imprudent risk-taking magnified into a painful economic shock. This time, a real-world shock is instead spilling into the financial system and breaking its gears.

“It wasn’t bad behavior — it’s a virus,” said Patrick T. Harker, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. “Look at the streets — it’s affecting every single American immediately. This is just such a different scenario.”

So far, the Fed has used its firepower to keep loans cheap and prevent the financial system from melting down. That has been a challenge as companies grab for cash and banks and investment funds try to keep money at the ready.

But as the meltdown enters a new stage — closed dentist offices will struggle to make payroll and rent payments, quarantined chefs will fall behind on mortgage payments, and state and local governments will struggle to find the cash to fund relief efforts — the Fed could play a more immediate role in bailing out Main Street.

At the most extreme, some economists have suggested that the Fed could help send people money. David Beckworth, a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, has suggested that Congress should allow the Fed to create a so-called standing fiscal facility, which would allow it to deposit funds in the Treasury in exchange for Treasury bonds. The money would then be sent straight to Americans via the Internal Revenue Service, and would continue to be deployed until the economy was growing at a rate the Fed targeted using a monetary policy rule.

Such a rules-based, Fed-supervised approach would be more effective than one run by Congress, Mr. Beckworth said.