As coronavirus continues to plague not only the nation but the entire globe, local small businesses have arguably been hit the hardest.

Small-business confidence dropped this month to near its lowest levels in the past seven years, primarily due to the new preventive measure of "social distancing," which implores citizens and workers alike to stay at home and limit social contact.

"We're certainly thinking about some worst-case scenarios or prolonged closures," said Natale Servino, general manager of the family-owned 42-year-old Servino Ristorante, Italian restaurant in Tiburon, California. "Our real concern is the hourly employees that come in and bring home compensation based on the amount of of hours they put in. In this industry, a lot of that is based on tips so they need customers coming in."

Businesses with less than 500 workers employ approximately 60 million people in the U.S., amounting to 47% of the private sector workforce, according to the Small Business Administration. Thus, the impact of coronavirus spans the supply side as well as the demand side of the economy. As customer demand for services wanes and small business revenue drops, businesses will have to start laying workers off in order to cut back expenses. Moreover, employees themselves may take temporary leave or miss work, leaving many small companies understaffed and exposed.

As an example of this, another restaurant owner in Seattle has already attested to how the coronavirus has resulted in the closure of his business: "unfortunately in an already difficult climate in Seattle to operate a small business, the impacts of the decrease in business due to the coronavirus has forced us to close our doors for good. We are a small business, and we were unable to weather the storm from the coronavirus."

Note that the fact that big companies like Google (GOOGL  ) and Facebook (FB  ) sending workers home has also impacted businesses that were concentrated in tech hubs, which used to flourish with activity from tech workers during their lunch breaks and after work.

"Small businesses are already being hugely impacted by social distancing. I had four pop-up events scheduled over the next month, and they have all been cancelled," said Britt Gooding, owner of CLT Boutique. "For me, this is basically like losing a month's income, and who knows how long this will last. Not to mention I'm trying to plan a store opening amidst a storm of so many unknowns. I was supposed to fly to Dallas market in two weeks to purchase all of the inventory for my store, but that's not happening now either."

In order to ameliorate the situation, people can continue to order ahead or order delivery from local food and grocery businesses. People should also have storage ready to store perishable items and stock up for later when it may get worse. Entertainment can be accessed through online platforms, or bought and downloaded on tablets. Of course, online shopping is still a pervasive phenomenon and may provide relief for businesses now more than ever. Many small business should consider offering delivery services or move to remote, online servers temporarily to also bring down overheads.