This conversation on coronavirus features epidemiologist David Heyman with TED Current Affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rogers, recorded live in the TED World Theater on February 27, 2020.

The subject that we're tackling today is the coronavirus. As of today, at 9.13 a.m. Eastern Time, there are 82,548 confirmed cases worldwide

and 2,810 deaths from the virus.

So we have a question right here.

Hi, Dr. Hyman.

Can you walk us through the symptoms, like what the experiences is, and then the recovery.

This looks like a very mild disease, like a common cold in the majority of people.

There are certain people who get infected and have very serious illness.

Among them are health workers.

It's a very serious infection in them as they get a higher dose than normal people,

and at the same time,

they have no immunity. So in a general population, it's likely that the dose of virus that you

receive when you are infected is much less than the dose that a health worker would receive,

health workers having more serious infections. So your infection would be less serious,

hopefully. So that leaves the elderly and those with comorbidities to really be the ones

that we have to make sure are taken care of in hospitals. We're seeing that there are a large

number of cases, but a smaller number of people who end up dying from the infection. And what would

you say are the most vulnerable communities? Who are the people that need to be most concerned about

this? Well, the most concerned are people who are, first of all, in developing countries

and who don't have access to good medical care and may not have access at all to a hospital should an epidemic

occur in their country. Those people would be at great risk, especially the elderly. Elderly in all

populations are at risk, but especially those who can't get to oxygen. In industrialized countries,

...