Dr. Chris Murray. Source: CNN

Dr. Chris Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, said cell phone data anonymized and shared with his research team shows that people by and large are following social distancing policies.

The institute's coronavirus modeling is being used by the White House to craft its response to the pandemic.

"We've made a big push to try to take into account how people move around," Murray told CNN's coronavirus town hall.

"There's a bunch of providers out there sharing cell phone movement data, of course anoymized to protect people's privacy. But what that tells us is that there's been more social distancing across the country than I think we expected, even in some of the states that haven't had as strong mandates. So that's going to factor into our new estimates."

Murray said it appears that several states in the southern US may have smaller epidemics than previously expected.

He added that the national peak is expected to hit now, but cautioned that different states will see their peaks at different times.

"That's going to be really important for this idea of rolling opening (of economies)," Murray said. "We're trying to get a deeper understanding of where states are still on the upswing and where states are on the downswing."