No museums, no galleries, no fairs, no art schools; no openings, no studio visits, no arguing over beers, no gauche private-jet partnerships. In a matter of days, the world of contemporary art went from a reverberant global network to a ghost town, sheltering in place as the coronavirus endangers our cities and our livelihoods. Like every other sector, art is having to go digital. There is no shortage of artists and critics (including me, all too often) who have bemoaned the way Instagram and other platforms have transformed contemporary art. Count your blessings: Now Instagram is almost all we’ve got.

These first days of physical isolation and cultural deprivation have been a furious gyre. The absolutely requisite closure of the museums — promptly in the United States, more tardily in Britain — may aggrieve those of us who find solace in art, but they have shuttered before: The Louvre’s collection was evacuated during World War II, and New York’s museums were padlocked, briefly, after the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Sandy.

Ticket sales at museums account for a smaller percentage of total income than they do at opera houses or dance companies, yet already the carnage is mounting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, with a princely endowment of $3.6 billion, has projected a loss of $100 million; institutions with smaller reserves are drawing down fast, and may never reopen. This week the Met launched a lobbying campaign, #CongressSaveCulture, seeking billions in federal relief funds for museums — and philanthropists, too, will have to step up, even as their investment portfolios are diving.

Just as endangered are the commercial art galleries, especially the midsize institutions for whom sales and fairs constitute an ever greater percentage of annual revenue. They are the ones bearing the brunt of the impact of the cancellation of this month’s Art Basel Hong Kong, and of Frieze New York in May.