Queen urges resolve in rare address to U.K.; Johnson hospitalized
LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to a hospital Sunday for tests, his office said, because he is still suffering symptoms, 10 days after he was diagnosed with COVID-19.
Mr. Johnson’s office said the admission to an undisclosed London hospital came on the advice of his doctor and was not an emergency. The prime minister’s No. 10. Downing St. office said it was a “precautionary step” and that Mr. Johnson remains in charge of the government.
Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth II, in an exceedingly rare televised address Sunday evening, sought to rally her fellow Britons to confront the pandemic with the resolve and self-discipline that have seen the nation through its greatest trials.
“I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time,” the queen said in taped remarks from Windsor Castle, where she has sequestered herself against a virus that has infected at least 40,000 people in Britain, including her eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, and Mr. Johnson.
The queen called it “a time of disruption in the life of our country: a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all.”
It was only the fourth time in her 66-year reign that the queen has addressed the British people, apart from her annual Christmas greeting — and it carried a distinct echo of the celebrated radio address her father, George VI, delivered in
September 1939 as Britain stood on the brink of war with Germany.
The queen’s speech, like the king’s eight decades ago, appealed to the quintessential British traits of stoicism and solidarity. It is meant to pull the country together to vanquish an enemy that brings death not in the terrifying bombing raids of the London Blitz but in the ordinary encounters of people transmitting a dangerous pathogen.
“I hope in the years to come, everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge,” the queen said, “and those who come after us will say that the Britons of this generation were as strong as any — that the attributes of self -discipline, of quiet good-humored resolve and of fellow feeling still characterize this country.”
Mr. Johnson, 55, has been quarantined in his Downing Street residence since being diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26 — the first known head of government to fall ill with the virus.
Mr. Johnson has continued to preside at daily meetings on Britain’s response to the outbreak and has released several video messages during his 10 days in isolation.
In a message Friday, a flushed and red-eyed Mr. Johnson said he said he was feeling better but still had a fever.
Mr. Johnson has received medical advice remotely during his illness, but going to a hospital means doctors can see him in person.
Dr. Rupert Beale, a group leader of the cell biology of infection lab at the Francis Crick Institute for biomedical studies, said doctors would likely “be monitoring important vital signs such as oxygen saturations,” as well as performing blood tests, assessing Mr. Johnson’s organ function and possibly performing a CT scan on his chest to assess his lungs.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who has been designated to take over if Mr. Johnson becomes incapacitated, is set to lead the government’s coronavirus meeting Monday.
Mr. Johnson’s fiancee, Carrie Symonds, 32, revealed Saturday that she spent a week in bed with coronavirus symptoms, though she wasn’t tested. Ms. Symonds, who is pregnant, said she was now “on the mend.” She has not been staying with the prime minister in No. 11 Downing St. — his apartment adjacent to the prime minister’s office — since his diagnosis.
The news of Mr. Johnson’s admission to the hospital came an hour after the queen’s speech, which was recorded with extraordinary care to protect the queen — who turns 94 this month — from infection. She recorded the speech in a large room with only a single camera operator, according to a palace official. The operator wore a mask and gloves while a skeleton crew monitored from another room.
Fears for the queen’s health grew after Prince Charles announced two weeks ago that he was suffering mild symptoms of the virus. He had met with his mother on March 12, only a day before his medical advisers assessed that he might have been infectious.
After isolating himself for seven days at Birkhall, his residence in Scotland, Prince Charles re-emerged via a video link to dedicate a new field hospital for coronavirus patients that was constructed in less than two weeks in a cavernous convention center in London’s Docklands.
In addition to Prince Charles and Mr. Johnson, several other officials — including Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty — have also had to isolate themselves because of symptoms.