DOUBLE-jabbed Piers Morgan was bed-bound for a week battling Covid – and said the vaccine may have saved his life.
The ex-Good Morning Britain presenter says he was infected during the chaos at Wembley amid England’s heartbreaking defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 final on July 11.
And the broadcaster, who has won widespread acclaim for his criticism of the Government’s pandemic policies, said he was struck down with a raging fever, chills and violent coughing fits.
He wrote in the Mail on Sunday that on July 16 he suffered through a “horrible night of high fever, cold sweats, ferocious coughing and sneezing and strange aches all over my body, none of which has been helped by the very hot weather that’s turned my bedroom into a Saharan furnace”.
The following Monday he said he was “hit by a sudden, brutal blast of debilitating fatigue that left me flat-lined in bed all day and feeling as if I’d been run over”.
By July 21 he was “still flat-lined in bed”.
He wrote: “Been a week now and although the fever’s long gone, the fatigue keeps overwhelming me like a soporific tidal wave. I haven’t even read a newspaper since developing symptoms, which for a news junkie like me is unprecedented.”
Piers said the vaccine had saved his life, and his thoughts were with former GMB colleague Kate Garraway’s husband Derek Draper.
Morgan wrote: “Derek is three years younger than me and remains in a virtual coma 15 months after being rushed to hospital at the height of the first wave of the pandemic with a headache and breathing issues.
“Of course, the big and very fortunate difference for me is that vaccines have since been developed and I’m double-jabbed with the Oxford/AstraZeneca one.”
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Piers told the Mail on Sunday: “My confidence that the event would be ‘Covid safe’ had disintegrated.
“It was turning into an unregulated free-for-all.”
Piers first felt unwell two days after the game.
He took a lateral flow and PCR test, both of which were positive for coronavirus.
“As I’m sure everyone who gets it feels, it’s a strange, disquieting moment to know I have this killer virus inside me,” he said.
And he went on to suffer a range of miserable symptoms – including “alarming” chest pains.
“My voice now sounds like Barry White, though I couldn’t feel less like a Walrus of Love,” he joked.
“This is definitely the roughest I’ve felt from any illness in my adult life, BUT, as I slowly come out the other side, coughing and spluttering.
‘THE ROUGHEST I’VE EVER FELT’
“I’m still here – unlike so many millions around the world who’ve lost their lives to Covid in this pandemic.
“For that, I owe a heartfelt debt of thanks to the brilliant scientists up in Oxford who created the Astra-Zeneca vaccine with such astonishing speed.”
Piers became one of TV’s fiercest critics after the pandemic took hold – leading to Government ministers refusing to appear on GMB for 201 days.
The boycott finally ended in November, when then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock appeared on the show.
Hypocritical Hancock, dubbed ‘puritan in chief’ for his lockdown sex ban, resigned in disgrace last month after The Celeb Report exposed his affair with aide Gina Coladangelo.
Taking to Twitter soon after news of the resignation broke, Piers said: “Didn’t resign for his abject failures on PPE, testing & care homes that led to Britain having the worst Covid death toll in Europe.
“Did resign for being caught snogging his mistress.
“Pretty much sums up Matt Hancock. As the Prime Minister said: ‘Totally f***ing hopeless.’”
