Queen, 95, has tested positive for Covid with mild ‘cold-like’ symptoms
The Queen has COVID: Monarch, 95, has mild ‘cold-like’ symptoms but continues light duties at Windsor Castle just days after Charles and Camilla both caught virus
The Queen has tested positive for Covid, Buckingham Palace has confirmed in a statement todayMonarch understood to be experiencing mild cold like symptoms and expected to continue with light dutiesShe will continue to receive medical attention and will follow the appropriate guidelines It comes days after Charles and Camilla both tested positive for virus and two weeks after Platinum Jubilee
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The Queen has tested positive for Covid just days after Charles and Camilla both caught the virus, Buckingham Palace has confirmed.
The monarch, 95, is understood to be experiencing ‘mild cold like symptoms’, but is expected to continue with light duties at Windsor over the coming week.
She will continue to receive medical attention and will follow all appropriate guidelines.
It comes just two weeks after the Queen reached her historic Platinum Jubilee, celebrating 70 years on the throne on February 6.
Covid symptoms may appear from two to 14 days after exposure to the virus, but it is understood a number of cases have also been diagnosed among the Windsor Castle team.
Buckingham Palace said in a statement today: ‘Buckingham Palace confirm that The Queen has today tested positive for Covid.
‘Her Majesty is experiencing mild cold-like symptoms but expects to continue light duties at Windsor over the coming week.
‘She will continue to receive medical attention and will follow all the appropriate guidelines.’
Prime Minister Boris Johnson today tweeted his well wishes to the monarch, saying: ‘I’m sure I speak for everyone in wishing Her Majesty The Queen a swift recovery from Covid and a rapid return to vibrant good health.’
The Queen is understood to be triple vaccinated, but she had been on doctors’ order to rest since mid October, after cancelling a run of engagements and spending a night in hospital undergoing preliminary tests.
She is believed to have spent time with Charles on February 8, when he hosted an investiture at her Windsor Castle home, before he tested positive a few days later.
The Duchess of Cornwall also tested positive for Covid, Clarence House confirmed on Monday, with a statement adding that the duchess was self isolating.
Buckingham Palace repeatedly refused to disclose whether the Queen had herself contracted the virus, though it remains unclear exactly when she provided a positive test.
The Royal Household has its own royal physicians and the Queen’s doctors will be on hand to take care of and monitor the head of state, with Professor Sir Huw Thomas, head of the Medical Household and Physician to the Queen, expected to be in charge.
The Queen (pictured during an engagement at Windsor Castle on February 16) has tested positive for coronavirus
The Queen and Charles walk together at Balmoral Cricket Pavilion in October last year. Charles tested positive for Covid earlier this month, but is now back to full health
The Queen with Rear Admiral James Macleod (right) and Major General Eldon Millar as she met the incoming and outgoing Defence Service Secretaries during an in-person audience at Windsor Castle on Wednesday
The Queen appeared via video link to receive the Ambassador of Jordan Manar Dabbas at Buckingham Palace on Thursday
The monarch carried out her first major public engagement for more than three months on February 5, the eve of her Jubilee, when she met charity workers at Sandringham House and cut a celebratory cake – using a walking stick to rest on.
And she admitted to feeling frail for the first time this week, but managed a smile as she returned to work at Windsor Castle, despite scandals engulfing Princes Charles and Andrew that threaten to overshadow her Jubilee year.
Her Majesty again leaned on a walking stick as she told incoming Defence Services Secretary Major General Eldon Millar and his predecessor Rear Admiral James Macleod ‘I can’t move’ in the Oak Room at her Berkshire home on Wednesday.
The monarch stood rooted to the spot and leaned on her cane as she pointed to her left leg or foot – but mustered a smile when the two men approached her and shook her hand.
The Queen was understood to have been feeling slightly stiff, rather than having injured herself or being unwell.
Royal biographer Angela Levin told Sky News: ‘It is a very worrying time because you don’t know what can happen and when.
‘You don’t want to totally isolate her. She needs contact with people – she has done that ever since she came to the throne.
‘It would make her sad and think about negative things because that is what you do when you are on your own for a long time.’
She also said her Platinum Jubilee celebrations may face a rethink due to her health.
Royal commentator Alastair Bruce added: ‘It is a worry always when someone is much older, but she had a great deal of energy and is very fit.
‘This is a very real challenge to anyone at the age she is. The Queen is well looked after and has a huge interest in the work she does. She is a fighter.’
It comes following public concern over the Queen’s health in recent months.
She missed the Remembrance Sunday event at the Cenotaph on November 14 last year due to a sprained back.
Before that, she missed a reception for business leaders at Windsor Castle on October 19 due to ill health, instead spending a night at King Edward VII’s Hospital.
That hospital stay was her first in eight years, when in 2013 she was treated at the private clinic for a bout of gastroenteritis.
The sovereign was also seen using a walking stick at a Westminster Abbey service in early October, the first time she had done so at a major event.
Government ministers have sent their well wishes to the monarch on Twitter.
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said: ‘Wishing Her Majesty the a swift recovery. God Save The Queen.
Oliver Dowden added: ‘Wishing Her Majesty the Queen a swift recovery.’
Health Secretary Sajid Javid tweeted: ‘Wishing Her Majesty The Queen a quick recovery.’
It comes as Prince Andrew finalised the settlement of a bombshell sex assault case against him earlier this week, while the Met has also launched a probe into a cash for honours scandal involving Charles’s charitable foundation.
The Duke of York has agreed an undisclosed out-of-court settlement with Virginia Giuffre after she sued him claiming she was trafficked by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew’s friend, to have sex with the royal when she was 17 and a minor under US law.
But it came amid fresh fury over claims the Queen contributed towards the estimated £12million deal agreed with his accuser.
The Queen pictured smiling during a reception in the Ballroom of Sandringham House, Norfolk, on February 5
Prince Andrew is pictured leaving Royal Lodge near his mother’s home at Windsor Castle earlier this year
Prince Andrew left the Royals mired in scandal with a murky £12million settlement with Virginia Giuffre, a victim of one of his friends, the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein
Dr Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz, pictured meeting Prince Charles, is one of Britain’s most generous benefactors
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in Rotorua, New Zealand, in 2018. Prince Harry tried to keep details of his legal battle to reinstate his police protection secret from the public
The monarch is expected to foot part of the bill for her son’s settlement in a bid to draw a line under it before her much-anticipated Platinum Jubilee celebrations this summer.
But there is anger at how the Queen has effectively been forced to bail out the ‘disgraced’ Duke of York, 61, whose modest pension from his time in the Royal Navy is now his only visible income – amid calls for the public to be told who is financing the deal.
Andrew marked the quietest royal birthday in modern history yesterday as he looks to lay low after settling his sex abuse case.
The muted celebration of his 62nd birthday came just hours after the death of Jeffrey Epstein‘s ‘pimp’, who was accused of trafficking hundreds of girls to the paedophile financier.
French modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, 76, who allegedly procured more than a thousand women and girls for Epstein to sleep with, was found hanged in his prison cell in an alleged suicide on Saturday morning.
And Charles could also be questioned by the Met Police as part of its criminal ‘cash for honours’ investigation into his aide and charity.
The Royal, 73, nor anyone in his household have been spoken to as part of the force’s assessment on whether to probe how a Saudi billionaire donor got a knighthood and UK citizenship after donations to the Prince’s Foundation.
Instead officers have liaised with staff at the charity, who have provided documents for the scoping exercise.
But Charles and his former right-hand aide Michael Fawcett, 59, have been both explicitly named in the two letters to the Met that sparked the investigation.
Fawcett stepped down in October amid claims he promised to help secure a CBE and British citizenship for Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz – a donor to the Prince’s Foundation.
It was alleged that he paid thousands of pounds to ‘fixers’ with links to the prince who said they could secure him an honour in return for donations.
Clarence House has denied Charles knew anything about the allegations being investigated.
And Prince Harry the monarch has also been dealing with revelations that Prince Harry tried to keep details of his legal battle to reinstate his police protection secret from the public.
High Court documents show he sought a far-reaching confidentiality order on documents and witness statements surrounding his case against the Government.
But the Home Office argued for transparency, saying ‘there must be a sufficiently good reason, in the wider public interest, to justify the departure from open justice that such an order involves’.
