Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, told CNN on Monday evening that he was "quite surprised" by the downgrade of his model.
His comments come after his model - which is a key forecast for coronaviruses often cited by the White House - has revised its mortality projection for the United States slightly downward.
He now anticipates that 143.360 people will die on August 4 - around 3,700 fewer deaths than the model provided for the last update on May 12.
"I must say we were quite surprised, Anderson. We expected them to likely increase due to a large increase in mobility in the past two or three weeks that we have seen in cellphone data, "said Murray on" Anderson Cooper 360 ", asked about the new forecast.
"But what is really fascinating is that there is no strong correlation between the place where mobility has increased and the trend of cases and deaths, even if we take into account the increase tests."
Murray previously explained the increases in model projections by pointing to mobility data. The thought was that the more people moved around, the more they would come into contact with more people and create opportunities for transmission.
But these expected increases in infections have not yet materialized - at least not to the extent expected by the IHME.
"Our explanation for this is that if you dig a little deeper and look at the fraction of the population in different states who wear masks, we think that's really the main difference there - both their behavior and the wearing a mask. "
CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta pointed out the delays between infections, hospitalizations and deaths, and asked Murray what he thought the model would look like in a few weeks, as the impact of reopenings became clearer.
"I think we're really going to need to watch the week or the next two weeks, because we expected to see it now, but that could certainly be a delayed effect," said Murray. "And I think we can also experience the phenomenon that people can be tired of being careful - stop wearing a mask, start having more physical contact."
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