ROBERT HARDMAN: It's just business as usual for our stoic sovereign

No crisis talks… it’s just business as usual for our stoic sovereign following positive Covid test, writes ROBERT HARDMAN

Having just tested positive for a potentially life-threatening virus which she had hitherto successfully evaded for two years, the Queen did not summon her heir or senior members of her Privy Council for crisis contingency talks on what to do if things take a turn for the worse.

Rather, she decided to send a message to the British Curling Team at the Beijing Winter Olympics. The monarch does not normally send messages each time a Brit wins Olympic gold.

However, Britain hasn’t had very much to cheer about of late and this was a great team effort (by both the women, who won gold, and the men, who won silver).

Yesterday’s terse statement, confirming that the monarch has tested positive for Covid, will only have been issued through gritted teeth. Her Majesty is pictured above on Wednesday

It will not have escaped Her Majesty’s notice, either, that this all-Scottish success was a triumph for the whole UK at a time when the Union is as vulnerable as it has been in her lifetime. The gesture will have been warmly received North of the Border.

In other words, the Queen was getting on with business as usual. It is equally telling that none of this week’s online engagements – another round of meetings with incoming ambassadors and an audience with the Prime Minister – have, thus far, been cancelled.

Yesterday’s terse statement, confirming that the monarch has tested positive for Covid, will only have been issued through gritted teeth. 

The Queen hates discussions about her health, so much so that her last visit to hospital, four months ago, only came to light via the press, rather than the Palace.

The official position is that royal medical bulletins are only issued in the event of bona fide hospital procedures or the cancellation of engagements. 

The Palace did not put out a statement about that last hospital visit because it involved ‘preliminary investigations’ rather than an operation, though there was widespread media criticism of the royal obfuscation involved.

Given that, on this occasion, the Queen is neither in hospital nor even confined to bed – she is up and about in her private corner of Windsor Castle – her current condition would not normally be deemed worthy of comment, let alone a statement.

However, Covid is self-evidently in a category of its own.

After Prince Charles’s last diagnosis, ten days ago, there was concern that he had met the Queen two days before that. However, the fact that several members of staff either have had or now have the virus means that Covid has managed to outwit whatever ‘track and trace’ precautions were in place

On the other hand, there was criticism of the Duke of Cambridge when he kept his Covid diagnosis secret for seven months, all through 2020, because he ‘didn’t want to worry anyone’. It was left to the Sun newspaper to announce that news

The public, quite reasonably, expect to be informed that the head of state has contracted a virus which has dominated all our lives for two years and (for now, at least) imposes specific restrictions on those who catch it. 

In those dark days at the start of the pandemic, we were told that the Prince of Wales had contracted the coronavirus and, this month, we were informed after he caught it again. 

When the virus swept through the Government, in the spring of 2020, we had every right to know that the Prime Minister was, initially, laid low, and then desperately ill.

On the other hand, there was criticism of the Duke of Cambridge when he kept his Covid diagnosis secret for seven months, all through 2020, because he ‘didn’t want to worry anyone’.

It was left to the Sun newspaper to announce that news.

The Queen and her staff certainly don’t want to ‘worry anyone’ but, equally, accept that this is not something that could or should be concealed. The virus, I understand, is now circulating inside Windsor Castle and word of a localised outbreak was never going to remain secret for long.

However, having told us that a) the Queen is infected and b) that she is suffering ‘mild cold-like symptoms’, we will not be told any more unless there is a drastic change in Her Majesty’s condition.

We are not going to learn which variant the Queen is suffering from any more than we will be told which vaccine she has received.

Do not expect to hear any letters from the Greek alphabet emanating from the Palace press office any time soon. ‘We are not going to get into a running commentary,’ says a spokesman.

‘If there is something to say, then we’ll tell you.’ Having spent her life adhering to the philosophy of ‘show not tell’, the Queen sees no reason why she should tell us how she is feeling today or tomorrow or the next day.

However, as and when we see the next images of a smiling Sovereign receiving the credentials of a new diplomatic head of mission via video link, we will be left to draw our own conclusions about the state of her health. At the start of the pandemic, the Master of the Household, the resourceful Vice Admiral Sir Tony Johnstone-Burt, created a human shield around the monarch, with a closely-monitored skeleton crew of personal staff whom the Falklands veteran nicknamed ‘HMS Bubble’.

It was a strategy which worked extremely well in the early phase of the pandemic but was later relaxed. The mood inside what now passes for ‘HMS Bubble’, I gather, was one of calm stoicism last night. There is no panic in the private wing of the castle’s Upper Ward, no witch hunt.

After Prince Charles’s last diagnosis, ten days ago, there was concern that he had met the Queen two days before that.

However, the fact that several members of staff either have had or now have the virus means that Covid has managed to outwit whatever ‘track and trace’ precautions were in place. No one will be held to blame for that. 

‘Covid is no respecter of rank or bubbles and this is just being regarded as one of those things,’ says a well-placed source. It is worth saying that no one at Windsor Castle has (as yet) required any sort of hospital treatment. Moreover, there is no member of the Royal Medical Household – the Queen’s medical team – in residence. 

The castle does have a resident staff nurse (primarily for the workforce rather than the Royal Family) but there is no round-the-clock doctor in situ, as there would be if things were serious. On the other hand, no one is taking this lightly. 

The Queen and her staff are acutely aware that, for many people – including those with a full set of jabs – this virus can still turn into something extremely unpleasant and dangerous.

No one is taking anything for granted, especially in the case of a recently-bereaved widow who will shortly be marking her 96th birthday. It also serves as a reminder, however, that the Queen has had a very ‘good war’.

Her broadcasts to the nation in the early days of Covid were perfectly judged, most notably her ‘we will meet again’ reprise of Dame Vera Lynn but also her subsequent messages marking Easter and the 75th anniversary of VE Day. 

We have seen her embracing video conferencing technology with gusto. She has remained at the forefront of national life, whether knighting Captain Sir Tom Moore on her lawn or throwing a party for world leaders at the G7 summit.

The ‘war’ analogy is entirely appropriate, for that is how she herself really does view this pandemic. This time last year, she made a particularly striking public intervention when she urged everyone to get jabbed.

For, when it comes to ‘vax’ versus ‘anti-vax’, the Queen is perfectly happy to abandon her customary position of rigid neutrality – since she clearly regards vaccination not as a political issue but as a national imperative rooted in science.

‘Once you’ve had the vaccine you have a feeling you’re protected, which is I think very important,’ she told a panel of senior NHS executives during yet another virtual audience. It’s obviously difficult for people if they’ve never had a vaccine…but they ought to think about other people rather than themselves.’

Reflecting on the ‘strange battle’ in which the world now found itself, she added: ‘Having lived in the war, it’s very much like that.’

And just like the Royal Family, all through the war, the determination, for the moment, will be to ‘keep calm and carry on’.

The rest of us are still entitled to be very worried about her.

However, we can draw some comfort from one more bit of news from within. ‘The red boxes are still going up,’ an aide tells me. Which is certainly good news for her subjects, if not for the Queen herself.

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