Originally posted by the Voice of America. Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America, a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in the public domain. VOA Reporter Recounts His Fight With COVID at a Russian Hospital Charles Maynes MOSCOW - The symptoms came on almost laughably textbook. One morning in late November, my sense of smell suddenly disappeared. Soon my muscles ached and I developed a headache that resembled a spike dancing on my head. Then there was the hacking cough, the nausea, the sweats, the chills. It took a few days before tests confirmed what was already obvious to me: I had contracted the coronavirus. After unsuccessfully convalescing at home for the better part of a week, city paramedics came to my Moscow apartment and insisted I was overdue for a CT scan of my lungs. The ambulance brought me to a nearby clinic retrofitted for assessing coronavirus patients. Medics in now standard PPE "spacesuits" manned a cavernous reception area full of worn-out benches with scattered X's taped to them to encourage social distancing. Everyone looked sad. I probably did too. Whether you think the coronavirus is dangerous or not -- there's a deep-seated belief in everyone, I suspect, that you can outrun it. Or that it can't hurt you. Or that you've been careful enough. But here we all were. On the benches. Our turn had come. A CT scan showed "up to" 49% damage to my lungs -- a number that, combined with a preexisting condition, was enough to convince my examiner, Olga, that I should be under more steady observation in a hospital. Noticing that I was an American, Olga mentioned she had worked in a COVID ward in New York during the first wave of the epidemic in the U.S. last spring. She had been granted an emergency medical license allowing her to treat Americans with the coronavirus. "Thanks for doing that," I said. I meant it. Like many, I had followed the news as New York was overtaken by the virus last spring -- killing thousands. "You're welcome," she said. She also confessed she'd never been paid so much in her life. I could understand why. Health care worker salaries are shamefully low by even Russian standards -- a fact that prompted President Vladimir Putin to rightly offer [1]danger pay bonuses to frontline staff amid the pandemic. Let me be clear: The vast majority of Russian health care workers are dedicated professionals. But why else should they risk their lives for next to nothing? And those of their families? Why would anyone? Under the new Putin rules, doctors in the "red zone" collect just over $1,000 a month, with pay scaled down for nurses, EMTs, and other personnel. In Russia's current economic climate, that has made caring for COVID patients a dangerous but fairly lucrative profession -- at least for those who've managed to collect. And survive. Complaints about money gone missing abounded in the early days of the pandemic. Meanwhile, an informal [2]In Memoriam list of health care workers felled by the virus sits at 1,000 and counting. The kitchen debates I was transferred to a makeshift hospital in Moscow's Sokolniki Park -- a location that struck me as comically appropriate given its history with the U.S. The park was host to the so-called [3]American National Exhibition in 1959 -- a moment made famous by the impromptu so-called '[4]kitchen debate' between Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and then Vice President Richard Nixon over which society was more advanced: the United States or the USSR. Today, that competition is playing out in the realm of vaccines. Russia was quick -- too quick, international health experts ague -- to claim it had [5]won the race to develop a COVID vaccine with its "[6]Sputnik V." The U.S. has since green-lighted the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Russia says it has alternatives nearly ready for approval. Moscow and Washington have been dueling with efficacy rates for months. Given the state of U.S.-Russian relations, it feels like a new front in the new Cold War. Only this one fought with needles. Pop-up hospitals To some, I imagine, the idea of a stay in a Russian hospital conjures up images of horror. Frankly, my own impressions haven't been great, either. Russian friends have come out of city clinics even before the epidemic with little good to say about the experience. Even as a foreigner I'd been in Moscow hospitals that were dilapidated and filthy. Only that wasn't the case here. References 1. https://tass.ru/obschestvo/8232907 2. https://sites.google.com/view/covid-memory/home 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_National_Exhibition 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRgOz2x9c08 5. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-russia-vaccine-put/russia-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine-putin-says-idUSKCN25712U 6. https://www.voanews.com/episode/russia-hails-its-covid-19-vaccine-questions-remain-4399286 .