‘I felt full of fight,’ says Covid-19 survivor

The doctors and nurses who came into her room at the Greek capital's Attikon Hospital were always in medical coveralls and masks. She couldn't distinguish their features or roles - just their eyes, and that only when their goggles weren't fogged up.

Irini Tzourou, a retired chemical engineer, took a turn for the worse on her seventh day, contracting pneumonia. She felt like her chest was being crushed by a block of concrete. The top half of the door of her isolated room was made of glass, allowing her to see into the hall and through the window on the other side, which offered her a glimpse of the mountain. "Catching the sunrise was so important," the 70-year-old coronavirus survivor tells Kathimerini after being discharged from the Attikon on March 30, nearly a month after being admitted.

Our interview is conducted by telephone as she's not allowed to see anyone...