Queen, 95, has tested positive for Covid with mild ‘cold-like’ symptoms

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The Queen has tested positive for Covid just days after Charles and Camilla both caught the virus, but has still found time to send a message to Team GB’s medal winners today.

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.   

Her Majesty’s diagnosis comes after a number of people at Windsor Castle, where the monarch resides, tested positive for Covid-19.

It also 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.’ 

The diagnosis comes as the Queen today sent a message of congratulations to Team GB’s women’s curling team after they won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. 

It is likely she will be working from her red boxes, sent to her every day and containing policy papers, Foreign Office telegrams, letters and other State papers from Government ministers and Commonwealth representatives that have to be read and, where necessary, approved and signed.

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 has been subject to health concerns since mid October after cancelling a run of engagements and spending a night in hospital undergoing preliminary tests. 

She missed the Remembrance Sunday event at the Cenotaph on November 14 last year due to a sprained back.

Prior to 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. 

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 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.’  

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.’     

While Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said: ‘Wishing Her Majesty a speedy recovery.’

And London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted: ‘The commitment Her Majesty the Queen has shown to our country continues to be unwavering. Wishing her a swift and safe recovery from Covid-19.’

Elsewhere Priti Patel said: ‘Wishing Her Majesty a quick recovery. God save the Queen. ‘

While Labour leader Keir Starmer wrote: ‘On behalf of myself and the whole of @UKLabour, wishing Her Majesty The Queen good health and a speedy recovery. Get well soon, Ma’am.’

Today royal expert Robert Jobson told GB News: ‘The Queen is 96 next month and Covid of course whether you’ve been vaccinated three times, as the Majesty, it still has an impact particularly on older people. I’m sure they’re monitoring her very carefully. 

‘I would think the idea of light duty as well. I think she should probably be focused on her health rather than light duties and it is a concern no doubt about that. My feeling is that hopefully that she’ll just focus on health and not work.’ 

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 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’.