Khaldun told Bridge there are no plans currently in place to close schools or other systems, but she said the department is working closely with attorneys in case the need arises.

The state is also working with hospitals and even the U.S. Department of Defense to ensure there are beds available for anyone who comes down with the virus. Bridge reported this week that one Detroit hospital has five rooms set aside exclusively for patients.

Maj. Gen. Paul Rodgers, director of the state Department of Military Veterans Affairs, said at the news conference that the state is working with the U.S. defense department to set aside 20 beds for people who are infected and may need quarantined at Fort Custer Training Center in Augusta, near Battle Creek.

Elsewhere in the country, more than four dozen cases have been detected, including one in California involving a woman with no known travel history that would have put her at risk for coronavirus. As case counts climb, hope dims that the disease that was first detected in December in Wuhan, China, will be contained anytime soon.

Whitmer, meanwhile, called on Michiganders to do their part – beginning with being disciplined about hand-washing, one of several personal hygiene protocols that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others are pressing everyone to follow.

“We encourage you to take care of one another, talk to one another, educate one another, and encourage smart personal hygiene,” Whitmer said.

The state’s emergency center, located at Michigan State Police headquarters, convenes representatives of federal, state and local agencies to coordinate the response to any disaster, emergency or terrorist event. It is part of MSP’s Emergency Management and Homeland Security Division.

It was previously activated in response to the state’s outbreak of Hepatitis A, MSP spokesman Dale George said after a morning news conference. Whitmer said she was activating the center “out of an abundance of caution.”

In Michigan, hospitals and health providers, school districts, universities and senior centers have been making plans in case the spread becomes a pandemic, but health experts have repeatedly stressed that personal hygiene as a first line of defense.

With Khaldun at her side, Whitmer also encouraged Michiganders to “replace handshakes with elbow bumps or fist bumps.”

The state health department will launch a hand-washing campaign next week on radio and social media, Khaldun added.

Earlier this week, Michigan was handed the ability to test for coronavirus rather than send specimens out to CDC labs. Testing in-state will allow results within four hours rather than several days, according to the CDC. In a letter Wednesday, the CDC gave the go-ahead to use kits that had been shipped to state health departments earlier this month but had been found to offer inconclusive results.

Previously, only people with symptoms of coronavirus and who had traveled to China recently or been in close contact with somebody with coronavirus were to be tested, but the CDC Thursday appeared to give local departments more flexibility in who they would test.