this conversation on Corona virus features at the demonologist. David Heymann with Ted Current affairs curator Whitney Pennington Rogers recorded live in the Ted World Theater on February 27th 2020. Ted Talks daily is supported by BB and T Now truest BB and T sees all sides of you beyond just your financial side They see your personal side You're strong and confident side your silly side your vulnerable side your loving side Because when they focus on you, they strive to be the best bank for you That they can be at BB and T always see is you tow Learn more Visit bea bea t dot com slash checking the subject that we're tackling today is the Corona virus. As of today at 9:13 a.m. Eastern time, there are 82,548 confirmed cases worldwide and 2810 deaths from the virus. So we have a question right here. Hi, Dr Hyman. Can you walk us through the symptoms like what experiences 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 or health workers. It's a very serious infection. In Nevers, they get higher dose than normal people and at the same time they have no immunity. So, um, in the general population, it's likely that the dose of virus that you received when you are affected is much less than the dose that Elf work would receive. Health workers having more serious infections so your infection would be less serious. Hopefully so that leaves the elderly and those with co morbidity is 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 it all to a hospital. Should UNEP id Emmick occur in their country, those people would be a great risk, especially the elderly elderly in all populations, air risk, but especially those who can't get to oxygen. In industrialized countries, it's the very elderly who have co morbidity is who have diabetes, who have other diseases who are risk. The general population doesn't appear to be a great risk,

Easily accessible information that's out there lists heart disease and diabetes, as the primary co morbidity is to be concerned about. But I'm curious if there are other ones that we should be aware of and thinking about.

First of all, pulmonary disease, existing as a co morbidity, is also important in general, the elderly or in greater risk, especially those over 70 because their immune systems are are not as effective as they might have once been, and there are more susceptible to infections. In addition, in some instances in China there's been a co infection with influenza, and at the same time there have been some bacterial super infections on the pneumonia. Is that her?

Are there certain places that you would suggest we all look so that we can keep track of how the virus is spreading?

The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta keeps track and has updates on a regular basis on its website. Also, the World Health Organization in Geneva, which is coordinating many of the activities going on international, also has a website with daily updates. It's our responsibility to get that information individuals so we understand and can make sure we can contribute their own way to prevention of Major spread.

You lead the World Health Organization's response to the SARS outbreak. You know, I think that one thing that's interesting is when we talk about covert, 19 of the things we're hearing is that oh, it's it's not as bad as stars. You also hear that the death toll is higher. And so why is it so difficult for us to understand Cove in 19? What makes it so challenging and why they're these conflicting reports.

That's the same problem with all new infections. This is an infection that's come into humans who have never been exposed to this virus before. They don't have any antibody protection, and it's not clear whether their immune system can handle this virus or not. This is a virus that usually finds itself in bats or in other animals, and all of a sudden it's in humans and humans just don't have experience with this virus. And gradually we are beginning to learn a lot, as we did with stars. And you know, there are certainly a larger number of deaths than there were with stars. But when you divide that by a denominator of persons who were infected, there are many, many more persons infected were stars. The case fatality ratio, that is, the ratio of guests to the numbers of cases in stars was about 10%. With the current Corona virus,

Kobe, 19 is 2% or probably less so it's a much less virulent virus, but it's still a virus that causes mortality, and that's what we don't want entering human populations. My question is, despite advancements and lesson learnt in outbreaks, it seems like a little community did not effectively coordinate across forever screening. And in the first few weeks, it seems that many airports were not prepared to screen people. How can we move from a reactive to a proactive approach? In future cases, it's clearly understood that airports or any land borders cannot prevent the disease from entering. People in the incubation period can cross that border can enter countries and can then infect others when they become sick, so its borders are not means of preventing infections from entering the country by checking temperatures. Orders are important because you can provide two people arriving from areas that might be at risk of having a bad infection, providing them with an understanding either a printed understanding or verbal understanding of what the signs and symptoms are. This infection and what they should do if they feel that they might be infected,

What do you think is the real timeline that we're looking at for a vaccine that might actually be available to all of us?

Vaccines are under development right now. There's a lot of research going on that research requires First that the vaccine he developed then it'd be studied for safety and effectiveness in animals who are challenged with the virus when you're after they're vaccinated and then it was going to human studies. The animal studies have not yet begun, but will soon begin for certain vaccines. And it's thought that by the end of the year or early next year, there may be some candidate vaccines that can then be studied for licensing by regulatory agencies. So we're talking about at least a year until there's vaccine available that can be used in many populations.

And it sounds like right now there's still a lot of questions that are remaining about the transmission. Then those questions that we need to be asking are still unanswered.

It's clear we know how it transmits. We don't know how easily it transmits Inhumans in communities or in un enclosed areas. We know him, for example, that did the enclosed area of a cruise ship. It spread very easily. We need to better understand how will spread what's it gets into more open areas where people are exposed to people who might be sick.

Could you talk against a little bit more about not just what we've been getting right with our global response to Cove in 19 but what are some things that really need to be improved upon?

A major problem in the world today is that we look ATT outbreaks in developing countries is something that we need to go and stop. So when there's an outbreak of Ebola, we think, How can we go and stop this up breaking? But we don't think about. How can we help that country strengthen its capacities? They detect and respond to infections, so we haven't invested enough and helping countries develop their core capacity and public health. What we've done is invested in many mechanisms globally, which can provide support to other countries to go and help stop outbreaks. But we want to see a world where every country can do its best to stop its own outbreaks.

It's hard to know what the future holds. But if you had to think about what lies ahead for emerging infections, especially as you think about the state of the planet right now, how many people are living here? The nature of travel? Are we more susceptible to these sorts of outbreaks now? Or, you know, what do you think is the future state of emerging infections going to be

today? There are over seven billion people, and when those people come into the world they demand for food. They demand a whole series of things that they lived closer together. In fact, we're in urban world where people live in urban areas and at the same time we're growing more animals and those animals are contributing food to humans. A cz Well, So what we see is that that animal human interface is becoming closer and closer together and this intensive agriculture, animals and this intensive increase in human populations living together on the same planet is really a melting pot where outbreaks can occur and do occur. We will eventually have more more of these outbreaks. So a nim urging infection today is just a warning of what will happen in the future. We have to make sure that that technical collect collaboration in the world is there to work together to make sure that we can understand these outbreaks when they occurred and rapidly provide the information necessary to control.

The World Health Organization's director general said that this has pandemic potential And so do you feel that we're in a place right now where the worst of this is yet to come as the worst behind us? Where are we when you think about that?

I can't predict with accuracy. So all I can say is that we must all be prepared for the worst case scenario and at the same time learn how we can protect ourselves and protect others. Should we become a part of that epidemic?