London: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has thanked staff at a London hospital for taking care of him while he recovers from COVID-19.
"I can't thank them enough. I owe them my life," Johnson said in a brief statement issued late on Saturday, local time.
The 55-year-old conservative politician, who was hospitalised last Sunday running a high fever, spent three days in the intensive care unit at St Thomas' Hospital after his health deteriorated.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson claps for healthcare workers on April 2, days before he was admitted to hospital. Credit:AP
He was moved back to a normal ward on Thursday. When the Prime Minister will be able to return to work remains unclear.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is in charge of running the British government, with aides reportedly expecting Johnson to be out for as long as a month.
According to Britain's Press Association, Johnson has a tablet computer to watch films such as Lord of the Rings and likes to play sudoku while recovering from COVID-19.
He has received thousands of get-well cards from well-wishers and daily letters from his pregnant fiancee, Carrie Symonds, while in hospital.
The nation's home affairs minister said earlier that Johnson still needed time to rest and recuperate following his stint in intensive care with coronavirus.
"The message to the Prime Minister is, we want him to get better and he needs time and space to rest, recuperate and recover," Home Secretary Priti Patel told a daily press briefing at Downing Street.
The government suffered a public relations blow at the daily briefing and came under pressure to recall Parliament after the country's death count from the new coronavirus approached 10,000.
In her first public appearance for several weeks, at the briefing, Patel was asked to apologise for previous comments by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who had said personal protective equipment should only go to people who really needed it.
His line that PPE should be treated "like the precious resource that it is" was deemed by the Labour Party's new leader, Keir Starmer, as an insult to front-line medical staff.
"I'm sorry if people feel that there have been failings," Patel said.
Her later stumble in announcing the number of people who'd been tested for the virus provided critics with another reason to unleash on Twitter.
And Hancock took to BBC Radio to deny suggestions by a senior National Health Service leader that he'd failed to properly follow social distancing rules by meeting in person with numerous colleagues.
Starmer's election as Labour leader this month adds to the sense that the government is finally having to answer questions that, after rendering the opposition toothless with December's landslide election win, it could have safely deflected earlier.
According to the Labour-supporting Guardian newspaper, Starmer has asked for urgent talks with the Speaker of the House to discuss the recall of Parliament, which was suspended on March 25. Patel said ministers had talked about it but didn't elaborate further.
DPA, Bloomberg
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