A dad described "one of the sickest ever" Covid patients has just started breathing without oxygen support more than a year after catching the virus.
Andrew Watts, 40, had one of the longest hospital stays doctors had ever seen after spending eight months in intensive care followed by another two months on a ward.
The dad-of-two spent 300 days at Queen Elizabeth Hospital where he was admitted with Covid-19 pneumonia on Christmas Day in 2020.
In February, after a five-week induced coma and two life-threatening lung collapses, doctors called Mr Watts' wife Hayley to discuss switching off his ventilator because his condition had deteriorated so badly.
But the family insisted he should be given more time and he has since left hospital - and now he has come off a nasal cannula for the first time, reports My London.
Mr Watts, from Bexley in South London, was finally able to go home in October and said he is "doing well" but still battles with ongoing complications.
The cab driver, who was in remission from lymph cancer at the time, had to relearn how to walk and talk after spending so long on a ventilator.
In intensive care, he used a tracheostomy pipe and had to communicate with his wife using letters on a board.
"Only a week and a half ago, I came off a nasal cannula for the first time since leaving hospital," Mr Watts said.
"I used it for nine hours every night to aid my recovery to help my lungs get back to some sort of normality."
The cabbie told how he has not healed properly after the ventilator and tube was in his neck for so long in hospital.
"That's why there is a whistle when I'm talking as there is essentially a hole in my neck where air comes out," he added.
"I can't get water in it or it makes me cough like mad. I could get an infection which means I can't go swimming and I can't shower the way I want to."
Mr Watts' family, including Hayley and sons Jack, six, and Joshua, three, have all supported his recovery.
In November, Mr Watts said his major goal was to walk his sons to school and he can currently walk for up to 15 minutes walking before his legs start burning.
"I managed to get to my son’s school and back last Monday. I say that - we parked around the corner, so it wasn't the full way. But still," he said.
"I think people should be grateful that they can do these little tasks.
"Day-to-day, when you're fit and healthy, you just do these things and don't think about.
"But when it got taken away from me, it made me realise not to take it for granted."
When Mr Watts first went into hospital in December 2020, he had not been vaccinated, due to the very early stage of the vaccination campaign - but he has since had three doses of a Covid vaccine.
Looking back on his experience, which included doctors at one time calling his family to tell them they were considering turning his ventilator off, Mr Watts urged others to get vaccinated.
When in hospital, he recalled how they did not believe that vaccinations would do anything and that the whole pandemic was a conspiracy.
“The fact that there are people that know what I've been through and still say that," he said.
"It's up to individuals. If it was me, I would tell them to go and get it. If they decide not to get it, then that’s their own fault."
Andrew said he was badly impacted by the virus because he was in remission from lymph cancer after successful chemotherapy treatment.
It comes as the Prime Minister today announced the end of Plan B measures - with the onus now falling on the British public to mitigate the risks of Covid.
Mr Watts welcomes the change, despite still being clinically vulnerable.
He said "I want everyone to live their lives to the max, this isn't going anywhere we’ve got to learn to live with it.
“I could wrap myself in cotton wool and live in a box but then what's the point in living? I want the world to get back”
“It's unlikely I would get it again. I'm taking necessary precautions, I have kids that go to school, but what can you do? I wear a mask where I have to and continue to wash my hands because otherwise what's the point?"
