The study, which was put together by PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is in the hands of top coronavirus task force officials and people working with the team, sources confirmed to The Daily Beast. It projects that if officials move too quickly and too aggressively to reopen in mid May, individual counties could witness hundreds, if not a thousand-plus, more coronavirus cases reported each day by August 1. Just two weeks more social distancing, the study projects, could reduce infections substantially—with potentially hundreds of thousands of fewer cases if the projections are conservatively expanded out to all 3,000-plus counties across the country.
The modeling shows that those counties exist in various parts of the country, in both urban and rural communities. In almost all cases, counties would see notably fewer cases per day if they waited to ease social distancing restrictions until June 1, according to the study’s projections. The model also suggests that states moving to ease restrictions should consider allowing individual counties to craft their own policies. Under the projections, one county could experience significantly different daily case numbers than others in the state—even those nearby—merely by continuing to adhere to social distancing protocols…
Two administration officials who have seen the PolicyLab study say it is one of the few being seriously considered by the Trump coronavirus task force and that the White House is using it to inform how they advise governors on easing social distancing restrictions. One other official said it is “one of a number of studies and data” that the administration is looking at in the process of safely reopening the country.
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