Five years of corona

“We transported three dead people every morning”

Theresa Gerlinde Amon was head of the nursing ward when the infectious diseases department suddenly filled up with coronavirus patients.(Bild: Erwin Scheriau)

Five years ago, all our lives were turned upside down. At the end of February 2020, everyday life in hospitals also changed abruptly. Suddenly the fear of death took hold. A senior nurse, the head doctor of a Covid ward and an operations director look back.

For Marianne Brodmann, the pandemic began even before the first confirmed case in Styria: "I was one of the first people in Austria to be quarantined after attending a congress in Madrid." After that, the Head of Angiology at the University Hospital in Graz entered a period that she still "hasn't digested".

Her ward, adjacent to the intensive care unit, was converted into a Covid ward purely for structural reasons. A separate "infection lift" delivered the patients up to her, and the entrance doors could only be opened with a special key.