The spread of the coronavirus is showing no sign of slowing.

The number of those testing positive continues to rise.

Here in Maine, the state's top health officials say they are hoping for the best, but planning for the worst.

"I want to stress that there are no cases now, but cases in Maine are a possibility," Dr. Nirav Shah is the head of Maine CDC.

He and his team have been building a plan.

"When you're dealing with an outbreak, especially an outbreak that is coming to our shores where we don't have any innate immunity to it because it's a new virus, nothing should be off the table," he said. "So, we've been planning for every possibility."

That includes large scale coordination.

"We are now working with nursing homes, hospital systems, and other stakeholder groups like clinics to make sure that they too are prepared for what we believe will be increased cases in Maine," he said.

"We have an emergency preparedness that we use regularly," said Dr. James Jarvis, Senior Vice President at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center. "Just a few weeks ago when we had the incident on I-95 with the massive car accidents, we were prepared to handle a large number of individuals from there. Thankfully that was not the case, and the harm that happened during that accident was low. We would use the same kind of process as we evaluate something like coronavirus if we were to have an epidemic."

That preparedness plan includes dealing with the potential of an infected patient.

"We have patients that are in isolation for a number of reasons," said Jarvis. "Some times because they have an infectious agent where using the isolation to protect others. Other times because they need to be isolated to protect themselves. So we are very very used to putting patients on isolation due to their conditions, and that would be no different with the coronavirus."

So, what can you do to protect yourself? Be safe. Keep 3-6 feet away from people in case they sneeze. You yourself use proper sneezing etiquette. And, hand sanitizer is good, but washing your hands is what's recommended. If you do show symptoms, while it may be counterintuitive, don't just rush to the hospital.

"If you suspect that you may have been infected with coronavirus, we are asking that you call the institution before you show up," said Jarvis. "So we ask you to call your primary care provider or called the emergency department before you come because if you are at higher risk, then we can make sure you can be put into isolation as quickly as possible so you don't spread the disease to our workers, which again, would make it so it would be difficult for us to care for all the individuals, and then make sure we don't spread disease to any of our patients or their families."