The Prime Minister Boris Johnson has stated that doctors had prepared to announce his death whilst he was in intensive care with coronavirus.
Boris Johnson was admitted to St Thomas's hospital in London after catching the virus, where he then spent three nights in the ICU.
In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, the PM spoke for the first time in detail about how serious his condition actually was, stating that it was a "tough old moment" as he was given "litres and litres of oxygen", adding that doctors had "a strategy to deal with a 'death of Stalin' type scenario".
The PM continued:
“I was not in particularly brilliant shape and I was aware there were contingency plans in place. The doctors had all sorts of arrangements for what to do if things went badly wrong.
“They gave me a face mask so I got litres and litres of oxygen and for a long time I had that and the little nose jobbie.”
Mr Johnson, 55, said it was “hard to believe” his health had deteriorated in just a few days, saying he “couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting better”.
The PM told the paper the “indicators kept going in the wrong direction” and that he kept asking himself: “How am I going to get out of this?”
“The bad moment came when it was 50-50 whether they were going to have to put a tube down my windpipe.
“That was when it got a bit … they were starting to think about how to handle it presentationally.”
In the end the PM did not require to be put onto a ventilator, although he added that intitially he was not accepting of the extent of his condition.
He said he was “in denial” initially about how serious his illness was, and that doctors were right to “force” him to go to hospital.
After a fortnight convalescing from the virus, and just two days after he returned to work full-time, his fiancee Carrie Symonds gave birth to their son, Wilfred Lawrie Nicholas Johnson.
They named him after their grandfathers, and two doctors – Dr Nick Price and Prof Nick Hart – who helped save Mr Johnson’s life.
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