Inside the Mock Ebola Hospital Bill Gates Set Up at TED (Video)

In conjunction with his talk at TED, Bill Gates set up a replica of the field hospitals used to help contain the recent Ebola outbreak.

The effort was designed to give conference attendees a look at just how difficult it is to treat diseases and an opportunity to interact with some of the health-care professionals who volunteered in Africa.

I had a chance to try on one of the suits and go through some — but not all — of the steps that health-care workers have to take to avoid becoming infected themselves.

One of the first lessons I learned was the same one that doctors and nurses quickly learn on the ground: Make sure you have everything you need before you don your protective gear. I managed to leave my notebook in my back pocket, under three layers of protective gear. Fortunately, we captured the bulk of the experience on video.

The video doesn’t do justice to how hard it is to maneuver inside all that protective gear — something the exhibit is designed to show. While there were no infected patients to care for, attendees were asked to perform other tasks, such as tying shoes, making up a cot and handing out medication (in this case, we dosed one another with Skittles or M&Ms).

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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