Queens sends out vax message
THE Queen decided to reveal she has received the Covid-19 vaccination to send a “strong message of hope” to the country.
The monarch believed it would send a powerful message to tens of millions of Brits and help silence the anti-vax movement.
The Monarch, 94, and Prince Philip, 99, were given their jabs yesterday by a royal household doctor at Windsor Castle, a royal source confirmed.
The head of state chose to abandon royal protocol regarding private medical matters and announced she accepted the vaccine “to prevent inaccuracies and further speculation”, palace sources revealed.
The royal couple, who have largely isolated at Windsor Castle since the start of the pandemic in March, became the latest royals to go public after Queen Margrethe of Denmark announced last week that she had received the first dose of a vaccine.
A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman yesterday said: “The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have today received Covid-19 vaccinations.”
The Queen is understood to have drawn on her own personal experiences to make her decision to go public – reminding courtiers of her decision in 1957, amid widespread public anxiety about the potential side effects of a new polio vaccine – when she revealed Prince Charles and Princess Anne, then eight and six, had been inoculated.
One well placed insider said: “This is a hugely significant moment in history and a decision the Queen would not have made lightly.”