When Robert Rowe Jr. was discharged from the hospital this month after testing positive for the coronavirus, he needed a place to stay so he would not put his 84-year-old father at risk. New York City health officials put him up at a three-star hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

The room was provided under a city program that was intended to protect recovering patients’ families and roommates. Case workers are supposed to check on the patients twice a day by telephone.

But on Saturday, Mr. Rowe, 56, was found dead in his room at the Hilton Garden Inn on West 37th Street, nearly 20 hours after a city worker last phoned him, though it was unclear whether he picked up.

Two other men sent to the same hotel — Julio Melendez, 42, and Sung Mo Ping, 64 — also died last weekend, and a fourth man in the program died early this month at a Queens hotel.