Marina Tarasova and John Levy were five months into the renovation of their two-bedroom co-op on the Upper East Side — contractor willing, just three months to go! — when word came from the co-op’s management company in mid-March that all construction and renovation projects would have to stop because of the coronavirus.

Another email soon followed as if for emphasis: The halt would be immediate.

“We were beside ourselves,” said Ms. Tarasova, the co-founder of Paloma Health, a virtual medical practice. “We’d been renting elsewhere and the expense was much more than we’d budgeted for. And now the rental would be prolonged.”

It isn’t exactly news that the coronavirus has upended everyone and everything. Those with an interrupted home renovation have good reason to feel especially unmoored. What should be a haven, their one safe place in the midst of chaos is perhaps now a welter of exposed pipes and partially tiled floors, an Everest of rubble around which they navigate at their own risk, or worse yet, flat-out uninhabitable.

In accordance with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s executive order, certain construction projects — like hospitals, homeless shelters and affordable housing — are considered essential and thus, permitted to go forward. But apartment alterations appear to be prohibited, said Steven D. Sladkus, a real estate lawyer. “Still,” he added, “even without the governor’s order, practically all buildings are prohibiting renovations during this time anyway to limit foot traffic.”