New IHME model says New York and New Jersey can 'safely consider easing' social distancing before Texas and Florida

Greg P. | 9:29 AM on April 23, 2020

New modeling from the much criticized University of Washington’s IHME is out and is estimating when states “could safely consider easing current social distancing policies while shifting to robust containment strategies (widely available testing, contact tracing and case-based isolation, restrictions on mass gatherings).”

But, we have some questions. . .

New maps show predicted dates when states could consider relaxing #COVID19 social distancing measures if they have strong containment measures are in place.

?https://t.co/rxnSeyXkrm
?https://t.co/YQje09X82r pic.twitter.com/j29tpEQStm

— IHME_UW (@IHME_UW) April 22, 2020

If you go by their latest projections (slightly different than the imaged shared with the tweet above) you’ll see that New York and New Jersey, the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States, can begin opening businesses before Texas and Florida, which are not experiencing any major drain on either state’s health system.

New York and New Jersey? May 25 to May 31; Texas and California? June 8 or later:

This just doesn’t make any sense. IHME has California opening up before New York, and the data for that just isn’t there, at least according to Nate Silver:

California has some of the worst data in the country. Substantial lags in reporting, very hard to get a handle on its testing situation. https://t.co/PuN8N7a7rH

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 23, 2020

If you look at his tweet from yesterday we told you about, California is a state that still at peak:

While you might look at the national data and think things are going all right, 15 states + DC are *currently* at their peaks.

These are:
AR
AZ
CA &
DC
DE
IA
IL
IN
MN
MS
ND
NE
NH
OH
RI *
VA

& testing data is murky in CA
* increased testing volume likely a factor in RI

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 22, 2020

And Texas is already past its peak:

8 states have fallen by 10-25% from their peaks. This starts to count as real progress. These are:

AL
CO
MI
NV
PA
TX
WV
WI

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 22, 2020

And Florida is even better than Texas: