A doctor who contracted coronavirus in Russia’s Star City where cosmonauts are trained has died after falling from a hospital window.
Natalya Lebedeva had been accused of failing to stop an outbreak of Covid-19 inside the restricted city, colleagues claimed.
Her death comes after Dr. Yelena Nepomnyashchaya fell from a window at a hospital in Krasnoyarsk after apparently complaining about medical shortages. She is now struggling to live.
Lebedeva had been head of the emergency department at the Medical-Sanitary Unit No 2 in Star City and was involved in treating the first patient, reports say.
After the initial coronavirus infection, it is believed to have spread amongst health workers connected to Lebedeva.
It appears Lebedeva was directly involved in the treatment of Star City’s ‘patient zero’ – a top trainer who had been in immediate contact with cosmonauts. Lebedeva was being treated in Moscow and fell from the sixth floor of the Federal Biomedical Agency in an apparent suicide.
Star City’s ‘patient zero’ was one of the heads of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, according to Moskovsky Komsomolets (MK) newspaper.
All cosmonauts and astronauts reside in the city before traveling to the International Space Station.
By early last week, six people had developed the virus in Star City, although unofficial accounts indicate the number was 22.
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According to Russian media, colleagues say Lebedeva had faced “accusations from her superiors that she had not taken sufficient measures to ensure the safety of her employees which resulted in the infecting of several health workers”.
Olga Minina, head of the Star City hospital where Lebedev worked, was among those infected.
It is uncertain whether the initial ‘patient zero’ had any contact with cosmonauts who have since flown to the space station.
