How to watch CNN’s coronavirus town hall live for free without cable

The coronavirus pandemic is a fast-moving news story that’s changing by the minute. In the last 24 hours alone, we’ve seen severe restrictions on travel, sports events, Broadway shows, concerts, office work, school attendance, and nearly every venue where large groups of people gather. In between, it can feel almost impossible to separate fact from fiction, or tell the difference between legitimate precautions and outright panic.

Tonight, CNN will try to make sense of all the mayhem with a special town hall on the global COVID-19 outbreak that has killed almost 5,000 people and infected more than 134,000. Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta will host the event, which will feature interviews with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s technical lead for coronavirus response, among others.

The event is a partnership between CNN, Facebook, and Instagram, which means you can submit questions on those social networks that the guests might address live on the air. It is scheduled to begin tonight (Thursday, March 12) at 10 p.m. ET.

If you’re a cord cutter who wants to stream the coronavirus town hall live on your phone, computer, or smart TV, CNN says you can do that for free without having to authenticate with a pay-TV provider. I’ve rounded up some easy ways to do that below:

CNN online: The easiest way to stream it live is just to visit CNN’s website. The stream is free, and you don’t need to log in with a pay-TV provider.
CNN International: Overseas viewers can watch the town hall there.
Streaming services: If you already subscribe to a streaming service that offers CNN, you can watch it that way.  Those include: YouTube TV, Hulu With Live TV, and Sling TV.
Facebook: CNN will stream the town hall on its Facebook page.