Birx to visit Kansas, Missouri this week to deliver coronavirus guidance, Trump says
Dr. Deborah Birx, the Trump administration’s coronavirus response coordinator, will provide guidance to Kansas and Missouri during a visit to several Midwest states this week.
During a press briefing last week, President Donald Trump announced Birx’s visit to Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas “to deliver aggressive, tailored, and targeted guidance.”
“The strategy we’re taking to these states will protect those at highest risk while allowing others at a lower risk to safely resume work and school,” Trump said. “If we do this successfully, it can be really something incredible because we’re talking about a lot of states, we’re talking about many, many states.”
Members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force have visited more than 15 states.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services was not aware of the visit, spokeswoman Lisa Cox said.
During a segment on CNN that aired Sunday, Birx said the country is in a “new phase” of the pandemic.
Last month, Birx spoke with Midwestern mayors including Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas.
On the July 27 call, Birx identified the Kansas City and St. Louis regions as “areas of rising infections, particularly asymptomatic spread for those under 30,” Lucas tweeted after the meeting.
On Wednesday, the Kansas City metropolitan area added 392 new cases for a total of 21,280. Three deaths were also reported, raising the metro’s total to 333.
The number of new cases hit a high on July 30 when 685 more cases were confirmed in the metro.
On Wednesday, Missouri reported 55,321 cases including 1,273 deaths. The seven-day positive test rate was 11%. The overall positive test rate was 7.3%.
Kansas confirmed 29,717 cases including 368 deaths. The overall positive test rate was 9.6%.
Nationwide, more than 4.8 million people have contracted the virus and 158,445 people have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
