Christopher Murray, the director of the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said on CBS News' "Face the Nation" Sunday that the U.S. would "very clearly have a rebound" in coronavirus cases if social distancing guidelines are eased on May 1.
Why it matters: Murray's influential IHME model, which famously projected 100,000–240,000 U.S. deaths before recently revising downward to 60,000, is one of the forecasts used by the White House. Some of President Trump's aides have been pushing to re-open the country on May 1.
What he's saying:
"The first testing we've done on this is if you opened up the entire country May 1, then we would very clearly have a rebound. We don't think the capability in the states exists yet to deal with that volume of cases. And so by July or August, we could be back in the same situation we are now. I think what Dr. Fauci was talking about this morning is that different states are on different timings. Maybe some states can open up mid-May, but we have to be very careful and make sure that we don't sort of lose all of the effort that the American people have put into closures by premature opening."
