BORIS: THE NHS SAVED MY LIFE
REVEALED: Full inside story of PM’s fight for life Carrie’s love letter with scan of unborn baby He was so sick that all No10 staff could do was pray
BORIS JOHNSON came close to death as he desperately fought coronavirus in an intensive care unit, his friends revealed last night.
After rallying, the Prime Minister told them that he owed his life to the doctors and nurses at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, adding: ‘I can’t thank them enough.’
The Mail on Sunday today reveals the extraordinary battle to save the stricken PM by medics who had been expecting him in hospital three days before he was finally admitted last Sunday. At one point, Mr Johnson’s plight was so grave that Cabinet Ministers and aides prayed for him.
While in hospital, Mr Johnson has been boosted by a love letter from his fiancee, Carrie Symonds, which included a scan of their unborn child.
The Prime Minister plans to recuperate at Chequers after his release from hospital but with a further 979 coronavirus deaths announced yesterday, 47 of them in Scotland and bringing the total in the UK to 9,937, his allies insist he will control the vital process of when – and how – Britain emerges from the lockdown.
Speaking yesterday, Home Secretary Priti Patel said: ‘It is vital our Prime Minister
gets well. We want him to get better and he needs time and space to rest, recuperate and recover.’
The PM’s steady recovery came as fears grew of a surge in deaths.
Ministers have also been warned that coronavirus is now affecting 50 per cent of care homes in Scotland.
Meanwhile, the Government apologised for a lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for health workers after medical groups accused Health Secretary Matt Hancock of implying that it had been wasted.
Announcing that 19 NHS workers had died since the Covid-19 outbreak began, Mr Hancock said he didn’t want to put ‘blame on people who have used more PPE than the guidelines suggest because I understand the difficulties in the circumstances.
‘What I would say it is very important to use the right PPE and not overuse it.’
In other dramatic developments yesterday:
Police in Scotland were on patrol as people breached the lockdown at parks, while forces in England faced renewed criticism for being heavy-handed, as it emerged that 1,084 fines have been issued for breaches of lockdown rules;
Cabinet Ministers are divided between the ‘hawks’ who want Britain to leave lockdown early in May and the ‘doves’ who want to delay lifting the restrictions until the summer;
This newspaper has found that the laboratory in Wuhan at the centre of scrutiny over Covid-19 carried out research on bats from a cave that scientists believe is the original source of the pandemic;
A leading Tory MP accused a China-backed company of seeking to exploit the crisis to ‘launch a raid on British technology’;
Five patients have died and another is fighting for life in the first outbreak in a Scottish psychiatric hospital;
Staff at one Scots care home have moved in, leaving their own families, in order to help protect their elderly residents;
Ms Patel said domestic violence had risen by 120 per cent last week, but overall crime was down 21 per cent since the lockdown began;
John Humphrys, the former presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, claimed BBC bosses were privately telling interviewers to go easy on Ministers when quizzing them about the virus;
Former Home Secretary David Blunkett railed against the daily briefings from No 10 which he said were ‘little more than a daily Sermon on the Mount’.
Taking questions during her first appearance at the daily virus press conference yesterday, Ms Patel was challenged about the shortage of PPE.
She said: ‘I’m sorry if people feel that there have been failings. I will be very, very clear about that, but at the same time, we are in an unprecedented global health pandemic right now.
‘It is inevitable that the demand for PPE and the pressures on PPE are going to be exponential. They are going to be incredibly high. And of course we are trying to address that as a Government.’
Her comments came after Mr Hancock was criticised by doctors and nurses for saying that there were enough supplies if they were used sensibly.
Dame Donna Kinnair, General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said no piece of PPE could ever be ‘more precious a resource than a healthcare worker’s life, a nurse’s life, a doctor’s life’.
Hinting that Parliament may have to be convened virtually, Ms Patel admitted: ‘There are many discussions and I can’t really elaborate any further on those discussions about how Parliament will resume and function’.
Meanwhile, America reached an unwanted milestone as it became the first country in the world to record more than 2,000 deaths in a single day. Brazil became the first in the southern hemisphere to exceed 1,000 in a 24-hour period.
By contrast, Sweden – which has rejected tough social distancing measures – recorded just 17 new deaths from coronavirus, its lowest daily rise in a fortnight.
THE shattering news that Boris had been admitted to intensive care will be remembered as one of the defining moments of the coronavirus outbreak.
Until then, for those of us lucky enough not to have severely ill friends and family, there was still an element of this being a phoney war, something we were waiting to happen.
Our Prime Minister’s admittance to an ICU shifted that dial.
Nothing could have demonstrated more effectively how there was no barrier to anyone getting sick. If someone as driven and energetic and physical as Boris Johnson could be laid so low, what hope was there for the rest of us?
If a man receiving the very best medical advice, in hugely comfortable circumstances and seemingly robust health could be toppled, how could any of us hope not to be struck?
It demonstrated that, to some degree, we were all at the mercy of fate.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who woke in the middle of that night feeling like the world was spinning off its axis.
Now Boris appears to be on the mend, and hopefully will eventually be restored to his usual bouncing persona. But his having been knocked so hard adds to the evidence that this is a good time to be a wimp.
Just before Boris became seriously ill, I had been wondering why so many of the most alpha-males I knew had been sick – and not just slightly sick, but pretty badly laid up. Many of them were bedbound with a fever for weeks.
Another was in intensive care. By contrast, their wives who also contracted the virus have almost all emerged far quicker, having undergone less of an ordeal.
Then it was revealed that there’s a link between the severity of the symptoms and testosterone.
I’ve no idea whether successful, commanding blokes actually do possess more testosterone than others but they certainly demonstrate the qualities associated with that hormone: competitiveness, dominance, aggression, impatience.
They also share an inability to admit to any kind of vulnerability or weakness, which is why so many of them spent the early days of their illness denying that they were sickly. Or refused, like Boris, to give up work and rest.
One man who definitely fits that Tiggerish mould is conservationist Hylton Murray Philipson – curiously, like Boris, an Old Etonian.
Millions saw video footage of him being clapped out of Leicester Royal Infirmary by a medical guard of honour after a 12-day stay including a spell in intensive care. Murray-Philipson moved viewers with his obvious gratitude and excitement at still being alive and by describing NHS workers as the Spitfire pilots of our time.
I don’t think there are many who would disagree with him.
Our lonely people need rainbows too
WALKING round the block, it’s lovely to see all the rainbows in the windows indicating there are children in the house who are creating these icons of hope.
Wouldn’t it be terrific if there were another symbol to signify people who were living alone?
It could be cheering to know that there were others nearby who were in similar circumstances, and it would also tell the rest of us who might need help with provisions, or appreciate a wave or chat through the windows.
But what would an appropriate symbol be?
All suggestions welcome.
How I’m washing all my cares away...
AS OUR lives turn inwards, we are all discovering things about ourselves that in more outgoing times were less obvious.
I’ve never regarded myself as particularly obsessive about how clean my clothes are, but now I wonder if I’m extreme. Certainly that’s how I was left feeling when I told a friend the other day about how much time I seem to be spending doing the household washing. Forget the Chinese flu, it’s the Chinese laundry round here.
She couldn’t understand why I was spending so much time washing clothes. In her home they were just wearing the same few items and didn’t need to wash them that much. After all, they weren’t going out or seeing anyone. Neither are we, but my reaction to being shut in is different. More than ever I want our clothes and household linen to be not only spotlessly clean, but immaculately ironed.
This new-found obsession means I’m never not flinging towels into a 60-degree cycle (something for ecological reasons I don’t normally agree with) and I’ve never spent so much time changing sheets.
On which note, I don’t understand how the best-selling Mrs Hinch can make a fortune advising us that the best way to change a duvet cover is to stuff the wretched duvet into the corners and shake it down. Surely, this is stating the mindnumbingly obvious.
As for washing ourselves – well admittedly I am someone who in normal circumstances has been known to have two baths a day just because I love the escapism of the tub.
But now there’s something purifying (and yes, I know that sounds a bit over-the-top) about being immersed in the water and scrubbing away. It’s perfect for social isolation and as far as I am aware our water is one of the few things we know is guaranteed virus-free.
A blank white slab is the height of fashion
I HAD been wondering which magazine would be the first to put nothing on the cover. It must be a nightmare thinking of appropriate cover stars right now.
The prize goes to Italian Vogue whose May issue cover is a blank white slab. Other editors must be envious that they nabbed this simple solution first.