You're listening to TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hugh. We're living in a new world now that coronavirus has upended lives, economies, and the way things used to work. One person who knows a lot about how to protect our public health as the crisis rages and some countries reopen is Georgia C. Benjamin. He directs the American

Public Health Association. In today's episode, Dr. Benjamin takes questions from Ted's science

curator, David Bielo, and head of Ted, Chris Anderson, who weaves in what the audience at TED 2020

wanted to know. It's now my great honor and privilege to introduce Dr. George's Benjamin, who's the executive

director of the American Public Health Association, who has a long and distinguished career,

both as a medical professional and as a public health professional.

Please give a warm welcome to Dr. George's Benjamin.

Hey, David. How are you?

I am good. How are you, Dr. Benjamin?

I'm here.

Hanging in there.

Good.

Well, we know that the theme of the moment is reopening, I would say. We just heard one possibility

for that, but obviously a lot of countries have already reopened in one form or another,

and I believe, as of today, all 50 states here in the U.S. have reopened in one form or another.

How do we do that smartly? How do we do that safely?

Yeah, we need to reopen safely and carefully. And it means that we have some got to forget

these public health measures that brought down the curve to begin with. And that means things such as

covering up your nose and mouth

in your cough or sneeze, wearing a mask, washing your hands, physically distancing yourself

to the extent possible from others. And being as careful as many of us have been in the last two

months as we go into the next three months, because this thing is not over. You know, I've been arguing a lot that now that everybody really knows what public health is,

...