Linda Lusardi has opened up about her coronavirus diagnosis, revealing the symptoms were so severe she wanted to die.

The former Page 3 model contracted the illness alongside husband Sam Kane last month and spent 10 days in hospital suffering from fever, chronic chest pains and vomiting.

The 61-year-old told The Sun: “It got to the stage where both of us were praying we wouldn’t wake up because it was so bad.”

She added: “I was lying on the bed and had my arm over my head and thought, ‘I’m going, this is it’.

“I could feel myself drifting away.”

The former Loose Women star told the newspaper she fell ill at home and her son Jack called 999. She and her husband were then hooked up to oxygen and taken to hospital in the same ambulance.

She tested positive for Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Whilst Sam’s condition improved, Linda’s worsened to the point that a doctor said he did not know if she would pull through.

She added: “I said to him, ‘Am I going to make this?’ and he said, ‘You’re 61, I can’t guarantee anything. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here’.

“To hear that was just dreadful and I just burst into tears.”

The couple are now recovering at home.

Linda previously urged fans to follow expert advice on self-isolation to halt the spread of coronavirus.

“Please take care of yourselves, loved ones and each other,” she said.

Linda, whose TV appearances include Emmerdale and Dancing On Ice, found fame in the 1970s and 80s, and in a 2005 poll was voted the UK’s most popular Page 3 girl ever.