The lack of geographic limits allowed by virtual court hearings in the age of the coronavirus has been on full display in the case of a group of dogs quarantined at John F. Kennedy International Airport, whose importer sued the federal government after he was blocked from bringing them into the United States from Russia.

During the first hearing in the case, on Sept. 18, U.S. District Judge Frederic Block of the Eastern District of New York noted that he was participating by telephone from Greece, where he has a summer home.