Read Chapter 8: — NO ROOM LEFT

Within a week, Lakeshore University Hospital stopped pretending the outbreak was small.

The isolation wing filled.

The emergency department opened a separate fever assessment area in a converted outpatient clinic. Staff were reassigned. Elective procedures were cancelled. Conference rooms became donning areas. Portable oxygen cylinders appeared in corridors.

Lena saw what fear did to a city before she saw what disease did.

People arrived with mild coughs demanding CT scans. Others arrived cyanotic after waiting at home for days because they were afraid of hospitals. Families argued with triage nurses. Rumours online claimed antibiotics could prevent infection, that hot baths killed the virus, that certain neighbourhoods were “safe.”

Adrian spent half a shift explaining why a negative rapid test did not erase a suspicious clinical picture.

Lena spent the other half explaining why every fever was not automatically the new virus.

Peter fought for beds.

“We are going to have to cohort,” infection prevention told him.

“I know.”

“Two patients per room.”

“I know.”

“We don’t have enough respirators for universal use outside the fever zone.”

“That is not an acceptable sentence.”

“It is still the sentence.”

The hospital began reprocessing certain protective equipment under emergency protocols.

Lena drove home after a twenty-hour shift and found three messages from her mother, two from Ben, and one from Martin.

Her father’s was shortest.

I heard you’re in the fever unit. Please be careful. I am proud of you. I should have said that years ago.

Lena read it twice.

Then she put the phone facedown and cried in the shower where no one could see.