Five people died at Saint George's Hospital in St Petersburg on Tuesday, including four in a coronavirus intensive care unit, according to a local lawyer. A source told the TASS news agency that the blaze erupted after a ventilator, used to help severely ill COVID-19 patients breathe, burst into flames in the ward. An investigator is seen through a broken window at the scene of a fire at St. George Hospital in St. Petersburg, Russia on Tuesday. "We have no official data about which devices were installed in the zone of the (St Petersburg) fire," a spokeswoman added. Data experts and some medics say many machines in use outside Russia's big cities are old, but TASS said the ventilator in St Petersburg was new and had been installed this month.

Source: CBC News May 13, 2020 05:14 UTC