LONDON - The Grand Tour's Jeremy Clarkson, who revealed on Sunday (Jan 3) that he contracted Covid-19 four days before Christmas, thought he was going to die.

"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," the host of the motoring TV series said in his typical opinionated manner in a column for British newspaper The Sunday Times.

He said his breathing became laboured and he had a constant dry cough.

"I'm not going to lie - it was quite scary. 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," he said.

As Britain is experiencing a new wave of daily infections owing to an aggressive strain of the virus, yet another British celebrity, comedian John Bishop, 53, has revealed that he, too, had contracted it.

Bishop and his wife both tested positive for Covid-19 on Christmas Day.

Despite being fit - he once completed a 470km triathlon from Paris to London for charity - and a non-smoker, he confessed that he had been "flattened by the virus".

In a Twitter post, he said: "This is the worst illness I have ever had, debilitating headaches, muscle joint and even skin pain, dizziness, nausea, no appetite, incredibly chronic fatigue."

He added: "I don't wish this on anyone."

In the United States, talk show host Larry King has also been reported to have been hospitalised for Covid-19.

King, 87, had suffered a number of health issues over the past years, including angina, heart attack and lung cancer.

He had been battling the virus for almost two weeks and his family members have not been able to see him as he is in isolation.