Transcript: Christopher Murray discusses coronavirus models on "Face the Nation," May 10, 2020
The following is a transcript of an interview with Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, that aired Sunday, May 10, 2020, on "Face the Nation."
MARGARET BRENNAN: One of the national death toll models that the White House is watching closely is from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. You've often heard it referred to as IHME, and they have some brand new projections out this morning. Institute Director Dr. Christopher Murray is in Seattle and he joins us. Good morning.
DR. CHRISTOPHER MURRAY: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What is your model showing you today?
DR. MURRAY: So our projections through till August 4th are up. We're up to 137,000 deaths that we expect to see and that's the effect of two things going in opposite directions. Some good-ish news coming out of New York and New Jersey and Michigan, where the death cases and death numbers are- are coming down faster than expected. Some other states where cases and deaths are going up more than we expected, Illinois and then Arizona, Florida, California as examples of that. And so it's the balancing of those that is driving our numbers. And then, of course, we're seeing just explosive increases in mobility in a number of states that we expect will translate into more cases and deaths, you know, in 10 days from now.
MARGARET BRENNAN: This is today, the second time in about a week that you've raised these projections. What's driving the change?
DR. MURRAY: Well, what's driving the change is, simply put, the rise in mobility and that's the key driver. We're seeing in some states, you know, a 20 percentage point increase in just 10 days in mobility. And that will translate into more human contact, more transmission. And then the other thing that we're- we're seeing in some states is, which is why we like to- to revise the forecast on a very regular basis, is that we're just seeing more cases and deaths than expected in certain places. But it's mostly mobility that's driving up the numbers.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And you are looking at mobility through tracking cell phone data. Is this mobility because of loosened restrictions or is it just quarantine fatigue and people are going out and about more than they should?
DR. MURRAY: You know, I think it is a bit of both. We're seeing increases in mobility, even in anticipation of the relaxation of social distancing. But there's definitely a correlation. The places that are taking off the social distancing mandate, the bump in mobility appears to be larger. So somewhere like Georgia, which was one of the first, we're seeing, in that category of- of a pretty big increase. So it's definitely a mixture of both, we believe.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, we spoke just before you with one of the White House economic advisors who said one of the reasons they're waiting on more emergency financial aid is because they want to see what happens in the states as they pull back restrictions and whether that leads to a new outbreak of the disease, as Kevin Hassett put it. Do you have any indication that that is happening?
DR. MURRAY: Well, I think that the big challenge here is that when we model the relationship between mobility and transmission, most of the data that's informing that is coming from when people reduced their mobility and we saw a reduction in transmission, you know, namely social distancing works. Now that we're coming out the big question mark is will people's own behavior, acting responsibly, wearing a mask, avoiding physical- coming into physical close contact, will that be enough to counteract the effects of rising mobility? And so we really are going to have to wait and see. Our suspicion is that there will be about 10 days from now in these places that have had these big increases in mobility, we are expecting to see a jump in cases.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And what- what places? What are the potential hotspots in the next 10 days?
DR. MURRAY: Well, as I mentioned a moment ago, the big increases in mobility, there's five states at the top. Some of those have had modest epidemics so far. So they may not be huge numbers. But, you know, the top five in terms of increasing mobility are Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and Georgia. But there's another 10 states or more where there's been a 10 to 15 percentage point increase of mobility. So pretty- pretty diverse. So we may see quite a lot of states tipping towards increasing cases in the next two weeks.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Would you advise Americans to travel? The Treasury Secretary was on another network this week and he said it is a great time for people to explore America. Would you advise them to do that?
DR. MURRAY: You know, I would give people advice. You know, I tend to practice what I preach. And so we're not traveling, my family and I, and have no intention of traveling. And I think it's all part of trying to think about a route back to work and school. And that entails, you know, trying to minimize exposure and close physical contact. Hard to do if you're traveling. So personal advice would be, you know, protect yourselves. Wear a mask and try to minimize interactions with others.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What does the data tell you about how effective wearing a mask actually is?
DR. MURRAY: You know, that's one of the big question marks. We know that the medical masks are highly effective and also very not available, nor is it likely that people are going to feel comfortable wearing medical masks. And so the big question is the effectiveness of cloth masks. We believe they are effective. Just how effective is the subject of a lot of research and discussion. And I think, you know, we just don't have an exact number on it. It's one of these factors that we're going to have to wait and watch and see what happens. The good news is that there are- there's more and more data coming in on who's wearing a face mask. And we may be able to figure out from what's happening community by community across the U.S. whether those places that are wearing masks more are seeing less transmission. And so, again--
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK.
DR. MURRAY: --more data will teach us more.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We will be watching for that. Thank you Dr. Murray for that. We'll be back in a moment with a lot more FACE THE NATION.