(CNN) – A prominent model has again increased its projection of fatalities by coronavirus in United States as governors continue to push for a reopening.
The model from the University of Washington Institute for Health Measurement and Assessment (IHME) now predicts that more than 137,000 Americans would die as of early August.
That increase is largely due to Americans moving more, IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray said in a press release, adding that in some places the upward trend in departures began before that state measures be relaxed. Investigators tracked that movement through anonymous cell phone data, according to the statement.
“Unless and until we see accelerated testing, contact tracing, isolating positive people, and widespread use of facemasks in public, there is a significant probability of new infections,” Murray said in the statement.
States began establishing reopening plans in late April, with the governors of South Carolina and Georgia leading the way with some of the more aggressive plans, and by this week, almost all states have begun to relax the restrictions.
Despite not complying with guidelines set by the federal government, states established phased reopens that they said were guided by data and advice from medical experts. But other public health officials gave warnings about the thousands of lives that could be lost with a premature relaxation of the measures.
And people are still divided too: a poll The Pew Research Center showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans said they were concerned about opening their state too soon. But thousands of people across the country have protested in recent weeks over their right to return to work.
What might come after the reopens won’t be apparent for weeks. An expert told CNN that it will be at least two to three weeks before states can begin to see an increase in infections.
So far, more than 1,329,700 Americans have been infected and at least 79,528 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The strange disease that could be related to the virus
In New York, health officials are now looking at a mysterious disease that is appearing in children who they believe may be related to the virus.
The condition, which doctors call “pediatric multisystemic inflammatory syndrome,” left dozens of New York children hospitalized, many of whom tested positive for the virus or had their antibodies, according to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
On Sunday, the governor said state authorities were investigating 85 cases, mostly young children and children of primary school age.
Many of the children had fever and symptoms similar to toxic shock syndrome and Kawasaki disease, which causes inflammation of the walls of blood vessels, including those that supply blood to the heart. In rare cases, it can lead to deadly limitations in blood flow.
READ: A mysterious disease could be related to the coronavirus in children: this is what you should know
Similar cases have been reported internationally, including in the UK, Spain and Italy.
A battle for coronavirus checkpoints
In South Dakota, a Native American community established checkpoints along state and US highways in an effort to track the virus and prevent it from spreading.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem sent letters Friday to leaders of the Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes demanding that the checkpoints be removed.
In a Sunday update, Noem’s office warned that if the checkpoints “don’t get up, the state will take the matter to federal court.”
But the Sioux tribe on the Cheyenne River refuses to remove them, and the tribe’s president, Harold Frazier, told CNN that the community wants to ensure that people from highly infected areas do not pass through the tribal lands.
“With the lack of resources we have medically, this is our best tool we have right now to try to prevent (the spread of covid-19),” Frazier told CNN.
The 12,000 people living in the reserve, Frazier said, depend on an eight-bed facility and do not have an intensive care unit (ICU). According to state data, about 198 Native Americans in South Dakota have been infected with the virus.
The cases in the White House
Meanwhile, senior health and federal government officials have contacted people infected with the virus, with some announcing that they will be quarantined.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House task force, told CNN that he would enter a “Modified quarantine” after being in contact with someone from the White House staff who tested positive for the virus.
CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield and Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Dr. Stephen Hahn will also be quarantined after being in contact with a person who tested positive for the virus.
Officials will not identify the person to whom Hahn or Redfield were exposed.
The White House confirmed that Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller tested positive on Friday. I was often at White House coronavirus workforce meetings.
But Pence does not plan to quarantine, his office said Sunday, adding that he plans to return to the White House on Monday. He’s tested negative for the virus every day, said Pence spokesman Devin O’Malley.
READ: Mike Pence will not be quarantined after his press secretary tested positive for coronavirus
And last week, President Donald Trump also learned that one of his valets in the Oval Office tested positive for the virus.
Holly Yan, Sara Sidner, Leslie Perrot, Artemis Moshtaghian, and Susannah Cullinane contributed to this report.
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