Dig into the science of coronaviruses and find out how they cause diseases such as SARS, MERS, and COVID-19.

--

For almost a decade, scientists chased the source of a deadly new virus through China’s tallest mountains and most isolated caverns. They finally found it in the bats of Shitou Cave. The virus in question was a coronavirus that caused an epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in 2003. So what exactly is a coronavirus, and how does it spread? Elizabeth Cox explains.

Lesson by Elizabeth Cox, directed by Anton Bogaty.

Animator's website: https://www.instagram.com/anton_bogaty/
Sign up for our newsletter: http://bit.ly/TEDEdNewsletter
Support us on Patreon: http://bit.ly/TEDEdPatreon
Follow us on Facebook: http://bit.ly/TEDEdFacebook
Find us on Twitter: http://bit.ly/TEDEdTwitter
Peep us on Instagram: http://bit.ly/TEDEdInstagram
View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-is-a-coronavirus-elizabeth-cox

Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Boytsov Ilya, Steven Razey, Javier Aldavaz, Nathan Giusti, Mada Arslan, Joichiro Yamada, Ritul Raghavan, Aline de Paula Zillig, Yambu Ganesh Shaw, Abeer Rajbeen, John Hong, Minh Tran, Helen Lee, Anthony Benedict, Turine Tran, Mathew Samuel, Karthik Balsubramanian, Lee, Livia-Alexandra Sarban, Annastasshia Ames, João Henrique Rodrigues, Sebastiaan Hols, Aries SW, SANG HAN, Amy Lopez, ReuniteKorea, Vinh-Thuy Nguyen, Liz Candee, Clovis Norroy, Danielle Downs, Nik Maier, Angel Pantoja, Nishant Suneja, 张晓雨, Srinivasa C Pasumarthi, Kathryn Vacha, Anthony Arcis, Jeffrey Segrest, Sandra Fuller Bocko, Alex Pierce, Lawrence Teh Swee Kiang, BRENDAN NEALE, Jane White, Karmi Nguyen, John C. Vesey, Yelena Baykova, Harshita Jagdish Sahijwani, Won Jang, Nick Johnson and Tariq Keblaoui.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices