Robert Peston Robert Peston

Is the PM an example of why those with Covid-19 should be hospitalised earlier?

Prime Minister Boris Johnson following his recovery from Covid-19, Picture Credit: Getty

There is so much to ponder in the prime minister’s interview about how Covid-19 almost killed him.

But, in respect of the effort to protect us all, what stood out for me was how and when he was persuaded to move from Downing Street to St Thomas’s Hospital.

‘I wasn’t struggling to breathe but I just wasn’t in good shape and it wasn’t getting better,’ he told the Sun on Sunday.

‘Then the doctors got anxious because they thought that my readings were not where they wanted them to be.

‘Then I was told I had to go into St Thomas’s. I said I really didn’t want to go into hospital…

The PM was taken to hospital, even though – by his own account – he was not struggling to breathe

‘It didn’t seem to me to be a good move but they were pretty adamant. Looking back, they were right to force me to go’.

The prime minister then emotionally describes how he was given ‘litres and litres of oxygen for a long time’ in intensive care.

And how, after round the clock nursing and oversight by skilled doctors, he recovered enough to return to the main ward.

He did not need to be sedated into a coma and have oxygen forced into his lungs via a tube. But he came close, and contingency plans were made for his death.

‘I felt so lucky because so many people have suffered so much more than I did,’ he said.

One big question raised by the PM’s interview is whether he was one of the many of those infected with Covid-19, who experience what’s known as silent hypoxia, a condition in which oxygen levels in the blood fall to dangerously low levels, but without the patient gasping for breath.

A related question is whether the PM’s own experience will, and should, prompt him to consider whether there should be new guidance about when those with Covid-19 should be admitted to hospital.

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