Entire countries are on lockdown, state visits are canceled, travel is limited, key meetings are postponed or moved "online".
The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically changed diplomacy.
While these disruptions may seem like mere inconveniences to the well-to-do "jet-set," they can have significant ramifications for issues of war and peace, arms control, and human rights.
The United States of America (US) has canceled at least two summits it was supposed to host, and moved a meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers online.
As the global crisis threatens to change the balance of power in the world, NATO diplomats have abandoned plans to meet in person, the European Union has cut its meeting plans, a major international conference in Scotland on climate change has been cancelled, as have many lower-level UN meetings.
If the pandemic is not under control by the summer, it could threaten the world's main diplomatic gathering since World War II - the annual high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York, a city affected by the virus, which this year will be the site of the 75th anniversary of the UN.
The president of the General Assembly said Friday that the 193-member world body will make a decision "next month" on whether to postpone the annual session, which is scheduled to begin on September 22.
If there is a global center of diplomacy, it is the sprawling complex of buildings at the US headquarters of the UN in New York, which is considered the heart of world diplomacy.
It is the host of many formal and informal meetings, but a good part of diplomacy takes place over coffee and drinks in the "Delegate Lounge", at lunches, dinners and numerous evening receptions.
The emergence of the disease COVID-19, which turned New York into the American epicenter of the pandemic, suddenly ended diplomatic life that had existed for decades.
As the world wages what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls a "war on the virus," many diplomats are wondering whether that life will return once the "war" is over.
Diplomacy at the United Nations and elsewhere has moved to telephones, email and virtual meetings, including at the Security Council.
With face-to-face meetings becoming less frequent, diplomacy via teleconferences and secure video links has become the norm, making it easier to drop out of the game for those unwilling or unable to engage in sensitive or controversial negotiations.
In the absence or drastic reduction of direct, face-to-face diplomatic talks, some fear that countries like Russia and China may try to use the crisis to further weaken international institutions already strained by the hostility of US President Donald Trump's administration towards them.
And others fear that the virus crisis could fuel an "atrophy of diplomacy."
"A lot of things are made more difficult," said Ronald Neumann, a former US ambassador who is now president of the American Academy of Diplomacy.
"I don't think this will prevent jobs from getting done... but the epidemic will probably be an excuse... It's a very convenient excuse for people not to do what they don't want to do anyway".
Peace talks between the warring parties in Afghanistan, Yemeni rebels and the government, and negotiations to end the war in Syria are diplomatic initiatives that could be completely halted by the virus.
At the same time, discussions on human rights, non-viral global health issues, climate change and trade are likely to be suspended.
Several meetings at the UN have been scaled back or cancelled: commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Beijing UN Conference on Women, when a plan to achieve gender equality was adopted; session on the Law of the Sea; rally on indigenous rights; conference on the five-year review of the results of the Agreement on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
"Here at the UN in New York, we have to turn to what we have..., to work better in the situation we are in. And in the process, we can learn what is really important, as well as what is the benefit of video-conferencing," said the Norwegian ambassador to the UN, Mona Jul.
In Geneva, another center of UN diplomacy, the coronavirus has canceled some meetings. The session of the Human Rights Council was canceled in mid-March "until further notice", and two plenary sessions of the Conference on Disarmament were postponed.
On Monday, the US envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, told the Security Council that a new plan for negotiations had been prepared, but that because of COVID-19 it was impossible to invite the Syrians to Geneva.
Two major diplomatic meetings in Geneva are also uncertain: the annual assembly of the World Health Organization in May - the UN agency that played the first role in the fight against the coronavirus, and the annual meeting of the International Labor Organization in June.
In Brussels on Thursday, the NATO foreign ministers held the first of two meetings that are held every other year, by means of a two-hour specially provided tele-conference, instead of the usual two-day in-person meeting.
The EU has reduced itself to diplomacy "at a distance".
An increase in the number of meetings, mostly via video conference, has been noticed, while others are held in person, but with reduced groups of officials, and diplomats complain that this reduces the benefits.
Last Thursday, European Parliament President David Sasoli presided over an emergency session on the pandemic in a virtually empty large plenary hall.
"We had to slow down, of course. But we didn't stop completely, because democracy cannot be suspended in the middle of such a dramatic crisis. Indeed, it is our duty to be at the service of our citizens in these difficult times," he said.
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