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Queen to make televised address on coronavirus pandemic

Queen delivers rare speech

UPDATE: 1:02 p.m.

Queen Elizabeth II addressed Great Britain, the Commonwealth, and the world in a rare speech calling for unity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Queen thanked front-line workers fighting the global pandemic and encouraged people to stay home in the statement issued on Sunday. Although the speech focused on Great Britain, the Queen appealed to anyone watching her.

"While we have faced challenges before, this one is different. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour using the greatest advances of science, and our instinctive compassion to heal," she said. "We will succeed. And that success will belong to every one of us. We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return.

"We will be with our friends again. We will be with our families again. We will meet again."

The Queen has addressed the Commonwealth every Christmas Day since she ascended to the throne in 1952, but it's only the fifth time in her 68-year reign that she has spoken specifically to rally Britons.

She also addressed Great Britain at the beginning of the first Gulf War in February 1991, on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in September 1997 on the death of the Queen Mother in April 2002, and in June 2012 to celebrate her own Diamond Jubilee.

The Queen, 93, noted that her very first public address was made in 1940 when she and her sister, Princess Margaret, addressed other children displaced by the Second World War.

"Today, once again, many will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones," she said in the statement that was recorded on Thursday at Windsor Castle, her main residence. "But now, as then, we know deep down that it is the right thing to do."

Unity was the primary theme of the Queen's speech, stressing the importance of restrictions on public gatherings and slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus.

"Together we are tackling this disease and I want to reassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it," she said. "I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge.


ORIGINAL: 7:32 a.m.

Queen Elizabeth II will address the U.K. and Commonwealth this evening from self-isolation at Windsor Castle.

Following a spike in coronavirus-related deaths in Britain this week – taking the nation's toll to over 3,600 – the Queen has decided to make a rare TV appearance to calm her subjects and thank the doctors and nurses battling the deadly virus, which has crippled the world in recent weeks.

An official tweet from The Royal Family, reads: "On Sunday 5th April at 8 p.m. (BST) Her Majesty The Queen will address the UK and the Commonwealth in a televised broadcast."

The address will also be shown on the Royal Family's social media channels and will be broadcast on U.K. radio.

According to the BBC, Sunday's address will be only the fourth of the Queen's 68-year reign beyond her traditional annual message on Christmas Day. The other three speeches came during the Gulf War in 1991 and following the deaths of Princess Diana (1997), and the Queen Mother (2002).

Meanwhile, The Queen has suspended her royal duties after releasing a statement last month, in which she revealed she was "entering a period of great concern and uncertainty."

Her son and heir to the throne, Prince Charles, recently recovered from the coronavirus.



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