Downing Street has emphatically dismissed claims that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is planning to quit within six months because of continued illness from COVID-19, reports The Sun.
"This is nonsense," a No10 spokesperson was cited as saying by the outlet.
The response followed a report in The Times alleging that the father-in-law of Johnson’s closest aide, Dominic Cummings, suggested Boris Johnson may resign from office next year due to lingering health issues after he caught the coronavirus respiratory disease in March.
In a conversation that reportedly took place last week between journalist Anna Silverman and Sir Humphrey Wakefield, father of Cummings' wife Mary, he is said to have revealed that the illness and time spent in intensive care had taken too great a toll on Johnson’s health.
Over the last 24 hours I have developed mild symptoms and tested positive for coronavirus.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) March 27, 2020
I am now self-isolating, but I will continue to lead the government’s response via video-conference as we fight this virus.
Together we will beat this. #StayHomeSaveLives pic.twitter.com/9Te6aFP0Ri
According to the journalist, cited by the outlet, she encountered Wakefield accidentally during a trip to Chillingham Castle in Northumberland, northeast England.
Once the conversation turned to Boris Johnson, Wakefield reportedly likened his condition to that of an injured horse that is brought back too early.
"If you put a horse back to work when it's injured it will never recover," Wakefield was quoted by the Times as saying.
Boris Johnson spent five days in intensive care at London's St Thomas' Hospital in April, testing positive to COVID-19 on 27 March after noticing mild symptoms the previous afternoon.
After receiving the results, he began self-isolating and working from home, yet just over a week later, on 5 April, he was admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital in central London for further tests as a “precautionary step”, due to persisting coronavirus symptoms.
On the following day, Downing Street announced Johnson’s condition had deteriorated, and he had been moved to the intensive care unit.
In an interview with The Sun in May, Johnson opened up on his ordeal with the coronavirus, saying that he had made "arrangements” at the time with doctors for his death, and was given "litres and litres of oxygen" to keep him alive at the height of his illness.
"It was a tough old moment, I won't deny it. They had a strategy to deal with a 'death of Stalin'-type scenario… I was not in particularly brilliant shape and I was aware there were contingency plans in place," said Johnson.
Since returning to Downing Street after his recovery, multiple reports over the following months suggested that the Prime Minister’s health remains poor.
Downing Street has been keen to dispel such rumors, with the UK media running photos of Johnson posing for photographs while doing press-ups and jogging.
