English broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson has revealed his "scary" battle with coronavirus over Christmas.
The 60-year-old former Top Gear presenter wrote about the experience in an article for The Times on Sunday (NZ time).
Four days before Christmas, Clarkson says he woke up in soggy sheets with a persistent, dry cough, and went straight into isolation. He got tested for COVID-19 after googling his symptoms.
"The doctor was very clear," Clarkson wrote in the article.
"I'd feel under the weather for between five and 14 days and then I'd either get better or I'd have to go to hospital.
"Where, because I am 60 and fat, and because I've smoked half a million cigarettes and had double pneumonia, I'd probably die, on my own, in a lonely plastic tent."
He isolated in a small cottage with his girlfriend Lisa Hogan, 46, and her children.
In the column, Clarkson touched on the struggles he faced, including feeling unclear about who he was allowed to have contact with.
"I'm not going to lie - it was quite scary!"
He added that he has "absolutely no idea" if he is even better now.
"With every illness I've had, there has always been a sense that medicine and time would eventually ride to the rescue, but with COVID-19 you have to lie there, on your own, knowing that medicine is not on its way and that time is your worst enemy."
His three children visited him on Christmas Day for 40 minutes, sharing a glass of champagne with him from a distance in the garden.
The UK recorded a further 57,725 cases of COVID-19 on Saturday (local time) - it's highest ever daily total - and another 445 deaths, as the country grapples with a surge in coronavirus infections.
