Hospital Battles COVID As Bombing Continues

Hospital workers in Ukraine’s second-largest city find themselves on two frontlines, battling COVID-19 in intensive care units as war rages outside. The Kharkiv Regional Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital director Dr. Pavel Nartov said air raid sirens go off multiple times daily, forcing fragile patients into the hospital’s makeshift bomb shelter. Handling ICU patients on ventilators is the most difficult and dangerous part of the process, but also the most crucial, given the dangers of exposing oxygen tanks to bombings and shrapnel, he said. Kharkiv has been under sustained fire from Russian forces since the outbreak of the war. Ukraine’s official daily COVID-19 cases have declined as virus concerns fell by the wayside and people focused on fleeing the fighting.