Is the coronavirus crisis R.I. Governor Raimondo’s ‘flannel shirt’ moment?

She closed all public schools in the state for this week and told administrators to use the time to set up distance learning plans. She banned all visitors from nursing homes, called on child care centers to close for at least a week, and ordered Rhode Islanders returning from overseas trips to self-quarantine.

Soon came an order that all restaurants and bars must shut down dine-in service. She banned all gatherings of more than 25 people. And on Wednesday, she closed school buildings for two more weeks, moving students onto the distance-learning plans.

This, in short, is Raimondo’s chance at a flannel shirt moment.

The Blizzard of ’78 is etched in the memories of many Rhode Islanders, along with the image of then-governor J. Joseph Garrahy wearing a black-and-red flannel shirt as he rode out the storm at the State House, informing and calming nervous residents.

Raimondo, who was 6 years old and shoveling snow in Smithfield during that blizzard, might never reach Garrahy-level status for her handling of the coronavirus outbreak. But she is being called on to provide the same kind of calm, competent leadership.

During her tenure, Raimondo has at times struggled to connect with residents, regularly ranking among the least popular governors in the country. But thus far, she is receiving bipartisan praise for her handling of the unfolding crisis.

“I think she is showing real leadership, and she is ahead of the curve,” House Minority Leader Blake A. Filippi, a Block Island Republican, said of the Democratic governor.

Filippi said Raimondo might have closed the state’s casinos more quickly. “But it’s hard to Monday morning quarterback these things,” he said.

He is glad the governor is displaying leadership, and he said people should not be thinking in partisan terms at a moment such as this.

Edward J. Quinlan, who spent 19 years as president of the Hospital Association of Rhode Island, was working as an administrator at Kent County Hospital during the Blizzard of ’78. He said having a governor speak to the public on live TV was a new phenomenon at that time, and Garrahy’s updates were “very helpful, calming, and thoughtful.”

During the past two weeks, Raimondo has displayed a “similar temperament” during her news conferences, Quinlan said. “She is showing a steady hand," she said. “She speaks in realistic tones about ‘This is where we are and this is what we know.’”

Quinlan said the governor has been wise to rely on and appear with Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, the state health director he described as “intelligent, knowledgeable, and experienced.”

Also, Quinlan said it’s smart to hold daily news briefings. “This is not information you can get from talk radio,” he said. “This information needs to come from people who are on the front lines on a daily basis.”

Marybeth MacPhee, a public health professor at Roger Williams University, gave Raimondo credit for taking early, aggressive steps such as declaring a state of emergency and closing schools. But she said the state needs to step up its testing for the virus.

“Rhode Island has really been prompt in respect to moving to social distancing,” she said. “But we have to expand the numbers of people being tested.”

MacPhee called for allowing commercial laboratories to do coronavirus testing in Rhode Island.

“It’s like we are trying to be a socialist state all of a sudden, by making the state control who gets tested and what information goes out,” she said. “Why not have the private system do much more robust testing here?”

Raimondo’s actions are not unique among the nation’s governors, many of whom have also acted swiftly to contain the outbreak of the coronavirus in their states.

In Ohio, for example, Governor Mike DeWine canceled his state’s presidential primary on Tuesday because of the outbreak. And the governors of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut on Monday announced that the region will ban gatherings of more than 50 people and close gyms and casinos.

But Raimondo has been ahead of many of them, taking action sooner and more comprehensively. By now, all 50 states have declared a state of emergency in response to the global pandemic, according to a daily chart of “State Mitigation Strategies” compiled by the American Enterprise Institute.

But otherwise, uniformity is as scarce as toilet paper.

The chart shows that 43 states have closed schools, 23 have activated the National Guard, and 21 have restricted out-of-state travel by state employees. Rhode Island has taken all of those steps, and it is one of just three states to bar gatherings of more than 25 people -- along with Massachusetts and Oregon.

A handful of states have take more extreme measures. For example, five states have prohibited gatherings of more than 10 people. Puerto Rico has imposed a curfew. And three states -- Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey -- are recommending a curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., according to the chart.

The problem is the coronavirus knows no borders.

“It’s not like there is a glass wall between Rhode Island and Massachusetts," MacPhee said. “A virus is only looking for a host -- it’s not looking for a resident of Rhode Island. Whatever viable living host is available, it will jump into it because that is how it replicates.”

That patchwork of state rules and regulations makes it difficult to contain a virus that’s cutting across the country, MacPhee said, but each state has the right to make its own decisions about how to handle the outbreak.

"Health is not mentioned in the Constitution, so it’s very hard to make national laws about health,” MacPhee said. As a result, states have jurisdiction over most public health matters, and the federal government has little authority, she said.

Joseph Cammarano, a political science professor at Providence College, said both Raimondo and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker have done a good job responding to the coronavirus crisis, but he pointed out that female leaders are held to a higher standard.

Baker was on a ski vacation in Utah the weekend of March 7-8 when the number of coronavirus cases in his state was growing fivefold. And, Cammarano said, “If Gina was skiing, they would have run her out of the state like Anne Hutchinson was run out of Massachusetts.”

Hutchinson, an influential Puritan spiritual leader, was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1638 for challenging the male-dominated religious authorities of the time, and she ended up in Rhode Island.

For her part, Raimondo has indicated she is trying to stay on the same page with Baker.

“I should note I am in regular, almost daily contact with the governor of Massachusetts,” she said at a news conference earlier this week. “Since we share a border, we are trying the best we can to align our policies.”

Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at edward.fitzpatrick@globe.com. Follow him @FitzProv.