“It’s a crisis that will impact our economy for generations,” said Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of Main Street Alliance, an advocacy group for small business. “We’re going to lose so much of the small-business sector.”

Commercial bankruptcies in the first quarter of 2020 ticked up 4 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the American Bankruptcy Institute. But many of those filings were made before the pandemic, when the economy was healthy. Right now, some owners are waiting to find out if they will receive federal stimulus aid before deciding whether to file for bankruptcy protection.

Many of them may just disappear. But for others, a bankruptcy law that took effect in February, the Small Business Restructuring Act, could help them survive the pandemic.