Britain’s longest-known coronavirus patient dies aged 49

A man believed to be Britain’s longest-known coronavirus patient has died after deciding to withdraw from treatment.

Jason Kelk, 49, was admitted to St James’s University Hospital in Leeds after contracting Covid-19 in March last year. He died on Friday morning, surrounded by his family, after being transferred to a hospice.

His wife, Sue Kelk, 63, shared news of his death on Friday and said Kelk, who was a primary school IT worker, “passed away peacefully”.

“It is with a very heavy heart that I have to share the sad news that Jason passed away peacefully at St Gemma’s at 12.40pm,” she wrote on Facebook.

Paying tribute to her husband of more than 20 years and “soulmate”, she said his death was “so peaceful”.

“It was definitely important for him to do it on his terms. But he is leaving an awful lot of people absolutely bereft,” she told the Yorkshire Evening Post.

“People might not think he has been brave but my God, he has been brave. I really think he has. And I just think that this is the bravest thing that you could ever do – to actually say: ‘I don’t want to live like this any more.’”

Last month she told Sky News that she feared her husband had “given up” after his condition worsened and he started experiencing “fainting attacks”.

Before then, she had been preparing for him to return home, launching a crowdfunding appeal to help pay for it to be converted for him.

Kelk, who had Type 2 diabetes and asthma, was transferred to intensive care in April last year and remained on the same ward until he went to the hospice.

The virus damaged his lungs and kidneys, and he developed severe stomach problems that meant he had to be fed intravenously.

Earlier this year he appeared to be recovering – starting to walk and coming off a ventilator and 24-hour kidney filter.

Before his condition worsened, Kelk said her husband was drinking tea and soup and sending text messages.

He told the Yorkshire Evening Post in March that he hoped to return home to “sit on our sofa and eat takeaway fish and chips with Sue while we watch telly. Something normal like that.”

He said: “My family is what kept me fighting. It would have been a very different year without them there.”

But his condition worsened in May. He had to be put back on a ventilator and then developed two infections.

Jason Kelk died surrounded by his wife, mother, father and sister and leaves behind five stepchildren and eight grandchildren – two of whom he had never met because they were born in the past year.