The creator of an influential coronavirus model, Dr. Christopher Murray, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday that the country can essentially stop coronavirus transmission this summer.
“The one thing we absolutely know for sure is that social distancing measures work,” said Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “It leads to a situation where every case is infecting less than one other case, and that means if you keep the course, you’ll get transmission essentially down to zero.”
Murray said that’s happening in Italy and China and there’s “no reason it wouldn’t work here.”
Murray’s model, which is often cited by the White House, assumes that social distancing will continue through May. But experts have pushed back on the model’s assumption that states can prevent any resurgence of the virus once those measures are lifted.
Watch his interview below: