Dr. Guskova now forbade further communication among the patients, confining them to their rooms. Outside the windows, the trees were in full bloom; the weather was perfect. Beyond the fence on Marshal Novikov Street, Moscow went about its business as usual. Those men and women who survived lay alone in their beds, attached to IVs or blood exchange machines for hour after hour, often with only the nurses for company. News of further losses among their friends and colleagues came in whispers from relatives and the disquieting sound of loaded gurneys rolling down the long corridors of the
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