Boris Johnson trashed rumors Tuesday that he was considering stepping down as Britain’s prime minister due to ongoing health problems as a result of his nearly fatal brush with COVID-19.

The Times of London started the rumor when it published a gossip piece detailing a reader’s claim that the father-in-law of Johnson’s chief adviser said the British leader was “still struggling badly” after becoming infected with the virus earlier this year.

He’d allegedly compared the 56-year-old political leader to a lame horse, saying he “will stand down in six months” because of his ongoing health woes.

But Johnson quickly dismissed the claim as “absolute nonsense.”

“I am feeling, if anything, far better as I’ve lost some weight,” he told DevonLive, boasting of dropping more than 20 pounds.

“I feel much, much better for having lost, by my standards, quite a lot of weight.”

The UK Times said its reader heard about Johnson’s health battles from Sir Humphry Wakefield, the father-in-law of one of the prime minister’s closest — but most controversial — aides, Dominic Cummings.

Wakefield allegedly told her that “Johnson is still struggling badly with having had COVID-19 (as if being a new father and needing to babysit Gavin Williamson isn’t tiring enough) and will stand down in six months,” the Times Diary reported.

“If you put a horse back to work when it’s injured it will never recover,” he was reported to have told the reader.

Source: New York Post