Queen Elizabeth has assured that the world will defeat the rampaging coronavirus as she rallied the Governments and Peoples of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth behind the ongoing efforts worldwide to crush the COVID pandemic.
She spoke on Sunday in a rare broadcast, the fifth since she ascended the throne 68 years ago, to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, thanking the people for following government rules to stay at home and praised those “coming together to help others”.
The monarch also thanked key workers, saying “every hour” of work “brings us closer to a return to more normal times”.
Her address comes as the death toll from the virus in the UK hits 4,934.
She spoke from Windsor Castle, exclaiming: “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 great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. 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, 93, also said the “painful sense of separation from their loved ones” that social distancing was causing for people reminded her of the experience child evacuees had during the Second World War.
“Now, as then, we know, deep down, that it is the right thing to do,” she said.
An hour after the Queen’s broadcast, Downing Street announced that Prime Minister, Mr Boris Johnson had been hospitalised following his coronavirus diagnosis.
Johnson has been self-isolating since he tested positive for the virus on 27 March.
In her address, the Queen said everyone who was following guidance to stay at home was “helping to protect the vulnerable and sparing many families the pain already felt by those who have lost loved ones”.
“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 added.
She also stressed the value of self-discipline and resolve – and said she hopes that, in the future, everyone would “be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge”.
While her Christmas Day message is an annual event, only rarely has the Queen made rallying speeches at key moments in the life of the nation:
The Queen’s four other special addresses are:
- A televised speech to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee in June 2012;
- A special address to the nation on the eve of her mother’s funeral in April 2002;
- A live broadcast on the eve of the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in September 1997; and
- A statement at the beginning of the land war in Iraq on 24 February 1991.
BBC
