photo by: Chris Ochsner/The Kansas City Star via AP

Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House's coronavirus task force, meets with local media Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020, at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan., to talk about ways to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in the area.

Kansas City, Kan. — President Donald Trump’s top coronavirus adviser used a visit to Kansas to urge people to wear masks regardless of where they live.

“What’s really important for every Kansan to understand is that this epidemic that we have been seeing this summer is both urban and rural,” Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said Saturday. “So we are really asking all communities, whether you are urban or rural communities, to really wear a mask inside, outside, every day.”

While in Kansas City, Kan., for a meeting with Gov. Laura Kelly as well as community and state health officials at KU Medical Center, Birx also stressed that people should socially distance and not have gatherings, The Kansas City Star reports.

“You can’t tell who’s infected,” Birx said. “Much of the spread is asymptomatic. I know we all want to believe that our family members cannot be positive. They are.”

Birx said when communities start seeing a rise in positive cases, leaders need to close the bars, restrict indoor dining, decrease social gatherings and ensure there’s a mask mandate.

“We have been doing that across the South and we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in cases where the population has followed those guidelines,” she said.