Sterling Lord started his first agency in 1952, launching the career of Jack Kerouac, and when he was asked recently whether he was still working, he said that he was — in fact, one of his authors was older than he: the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose most recent book, “Little Boy,” came out near his 100th birthday last year.

For Mr. Lord, who left his old agency last year, the pandemic has been an inconvenience because he cannot hire assistants to get the new agency going, he said. The building, which provides meals and some other services, sends a daily count of how many residents and employees have gotten sick or died from the coronavirus, but Mr. Lord has not paid much attention.

“I think there are five or six cases in the building,” he said, though the daily sheet said 33 infections and 8 deaths.

“Am I nervous about the virus?” he said. “Yes. But not that nervous. Because we’re doing everything we can to not let it happen. And so far we’ve been very successful. I have not been out of the house at all since this thing began. It’s very little change. With my work, it’s very easy for me to go the whole day without going outside. ”

For Gordon Rogoff, the virus and the city’s virtual lockdown were the third in a series of blows. He had spent nearly a decade in the role of caregiver for his husband, Morton Lichter, a painter, playwright and actor who had Parkinson’s disease. Together they shared an Obie award for a 1976 production of Mr. Lichter’s play “Old Timers’ Sexual Symphony (and Other Notes)” that Mr. Rogoff directed. When Mr. Lichter died on Jan. 9 in their home, Mr. Rogoff was both liberated and alone. While he was grieving, he fell and injured his knee, immobilizing him. Finally, as he was ready to move around again, the city shut down.

“I was really quarantined two weeks before everybody else, because I couldn’t walk,” he said, speaking by telephone from a living room filled with Mr. Lichter’s paintings. The apartment, where he has lived since 1962, is rent-controlled — reason enough never to die.