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Medical personnel move a deceased patient to a refrigerated truck serving as a make shift morgue at Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City on April 9.
Medical personnel move a deceased patient to a refrigerated truck serving as a make shift morgue at Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York City on April 9. Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images

The most recent version of an influential coronavirus model – which is often cited by the White House – projects that some states, such as New York and New Jersey, have passed their peaks in terms of daily deaths.

New York’s peak number of deaths, for example, is listed as April 9 on the model. New Jersey’s peak is listed as April 8.

Other large states are now approaching their peaks, according to the model, which was developed by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

California is expected to hit peak daily deaths within a week, on April 15. The state is expected to see 66 deaths that day. 

Pennsylvania is expected to follow a similar trajectory, hitting peak deaths on April 17, when 63 people are projected to die. 

For other large states – such as Florida and Texas – the worst is expected to come later. Florida’s peak is expected to come on April 27; roughly 112 people are projected to die that day.

Texas is predicted to hit its peak on April 28, when 66 lives are expected to be lost.

Some context: While it’s unclear when exactly the state expects to return to normal, lifting social distancing measures too soon – before the peak, for example – could reignite transmission of the virus and cost lives.

The current version of the model says it expects social distancing until the end of May, and assumes that states will enact other measures – such as mass screening and contact tracing – that will prevent any resurgence of the virus.

The institute previously told CNN that the projections assumed social distancing until August, as the model’s FAQ had stated in now-deleted language.

But on Thursday, the institute’s director, Chris Murray, said that was not actually the case – despite what a professor behind the model and an institute spokesperson had both said earlier.

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