‘I owe them my life’: Boris Johnson hails hospital staff – World

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he owes his life to National Health Service staff who treated him for Covid-19, before Sunday's figures in which the UK (UK) is expected to top 10,000 coronavirus-related deaths.

"I can't thank you enough," Johnson said in his first public statement since he was removed from intensive care on Thursday night at St. Thomas Hospital in London. "I owe them my life."

Johnson, 55, was diagnosed more than two weeks ago, becoming the first confirmed world leader to have the disease. At first, her coronavirus symptoms were said to be mild, including cough and fever, and she was working from home for the first few days.

But he was admitted to St Thomas & # 39; on April 5 after his condition worsened and he was transferred the next day to his intensive care unit, where he received oxygen but was not put on a ventilator. He spent three nights there before returning to a regular hospital ward.

While convalescing, Johnson asked UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to handle the nation's response to the pandemic that has infected at least 1.78 million worldwide and has killed 109,000 people. Experts say those numbers seriously underestimate the impact of the pandemic, due to limited evidence and different ways of counting the dead.

The conservative Johnson government has been criticized for its slow response to deal with the pandemic, as well as the lack of personal protective equipment for medical workers and the slow implementation of a coronavirus testing program. A senior medical official lamented the government for not acting fast enough.

Britain has been in an effective shutdown since March 23 and the government will extend the restrictions sometime next week.

Sunday's figures are expected to show that more than 10,000 people in the UK have died after testing positive for coronavirus. That would make Britain the fourth European country after Italy, Spain and France to reach that bleak milestone, even with its limited evidence.

On Saturday, Britain reported 917 new coronavirus-related deaths, bringing the total number of people who died in the hospital to the virus to 9,875.

With the death toll in Britain rising at such a rapid daily rate, and the death toll from viruses in Italy and Spain on a downward slope, there is growing fear that the UK will end up being the country with the most virus deaths in Europe. The continent has had almost 74,000 reported coronavirus deaths.

Last week, the British government's chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, warned that the daily death toll would likely increase for a couple more weeks.

Britain's business secretary Alok Sharma declined to know whether the UK will end the highest number of deaths in Europe.

"We are on different trajectories," he told the BBC. "We are beginning to see that these measures work."