Fears for Queen as Palace REFUSES to say if she has Covid after it’s revealed she met Charles

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The Prince of Wales met the Queen on Tuesday just two days before he tested positive for Covid-19 and was forced into self-isolation, sources have said.

This is the second time Prince Charles, 73, who is triple jabbed, has tested positive for the coronavirus after contracting the disease in March 2020. 

The Queen, 95, is not showing any symptoms but but the source declined to confirm whether or not the Queen had tested negative.

Her majesty is understood to be fully vaccinated so will not need to self isolate, unless she tests positive. But she will be advised to take rapid lateral flow tests, one a day for seven days. 

Aides said the prince was found to be positive during a test taken this morning as routine before any public engagements – which suggested he was experiencing no strong symptoms – but they declined to go into further details on his medical condition. 

Both he and the Duchess of Cornwall have been taking regular tests before engagements and Clarence House said Camilla, 74, had a negative test on Thursday. Under current Covid rules, although she lives with Charles, Camilla is not required to self-isolate as she is also fully vaccinated.

A spokesman added: ‘The Duchess of Cornwall has routinely tested negative today. She is on a separate series of engagements from the Prince of Wales.’

It is understood the Queen is fully vaccinated, having received her first jab in January 2021 and her second jab in March while sources say it is believed she got her booster jab in October. 

While in the past, Covid rules would have dictated that all those who had come into contact with the prince must self-isolate, it is no longer a requirement.

It comes a day after Boris Johnson announced he plans to axe all virus restrictions in England by the end of the month which would mean even those who have tested positive for the virus will not be required to self-isolate, ‘provided the current encouraging trends in the data continue’.

Downing Street said Boris Johnson hopes the Prince of Wales will make a swift recovery after he tested positive for Covid-19.

A No 10 spokesman said: ‘The Prime Minister would like to wish the Prince of Wales a speedy recovery.’

Currently, people who develop Covid symptoms or test positive must self-isolate for 10 days (or five full days following two negative lateral flow test results).

As well as meeting with his mother on Tuesday, the prince also awarded OBEs to chefs Fergus Henderson, who has Parkinson’s Disease, and his wife Margot as well as an MBE to Dr Nisreen Alwan, who is known for campaigning for more awareness around long covid. 

The Prince of Wales has said he ‘got away with it quite lightly’ when he contracted coronavirus at the beginning of the UK’s epidemic in March.

He spent seven days in self-isolation at his Birkhall home in Scotland before resuming his duties.

The Queen has been active this month, holding public engagements as part of her Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

There were concerns for her health after she was forced to slow down by a back sprain and a doctor’s advice to rest in October and November last year.

Her Majesty, 95, spent a short spell in hospital and was reluctantly told to rest last October after undertaking 19 official engagements that month.

The following month, she also pulled out of Remembrance Sunday ceremonies for the first time since 1999 after spraining her back. 

She resumed in-person engagements on November 17 when she received General Sir Nick Carter, Chief of Defence, at Windsor.

Charles, who is self isolating after contracting coronavirus for a second time, is finding the situation ‘a bit tiresome’, the Duchess of Cornwall revealed.

Camilla, who herself has tested negative, made the remarks on a solo visit to Thames Valley Partnership in Buckinghamshire.

Speaking to Willie Hartley Russell, high sheriff for Berkshire, during a visit to Thames Valley Partnership on Thursday, she said: ‘He’s diagnosed now. Luckily (she’s negative). I’ve taken it so many times.’

He added: ‘It gets a bit pointless, doesn’t it?’ and Camilla agreed.

Afterwards, Mr Hartley Russell said: ‘She said, ‘Yes unfortunately he had tested positive again. I said he must be building up lots of antibodies.

‘She said something like he’s finding it a bit tiresome to have got it again, but she said it in a light-hearted way.’

The news comes hours after Prince Charles and wife Camilla, 74, rubbed shoulders with Home Secretary Priti Patel and Chancellor Rishi Sunak at a British Asian Trust event hosted at the British Museum last night.

Charles, who founded the trust in 2007, told more than 350 guests of the impact of Covid on the region.

Using his pet name for Camilla, the Urdu for ‘darling’, he said: ‘It is almost two years that my Mehabooba and myself were able to be with you. Since then… there has been terrible loss of life.’

The Prince of Wales gave the keynote speech at the event which was attended by more than 350 guests including Health Secretary Sajid Javid.

The Trust was founded by Charles in 2007 alongside British-Asian business leaders to ‘support the development of a South Asia that maximises the potential of its people and that is free from inequality and injustice’.

Before his speech, Charles and Camilla greeted supporters and ambassadors of the BAT in the museum’s Egyptian Gallery.

They first spoke with Mr Sunak and Ms Patel before the four posed for photos.

The duchess later thanked ambassadors Neev Spencer and Ritula Shah as they congratulated her after the Queen’s announcement that she would become Queen Consort.

Hitan Mehta, executive director of the trust, said that it was ‘amazing’ to be able to host the royal couple at the reception after it was not held last year due to the pandemic.

The development comes just days after the Queen marked her Platinum Jubilee by expressing her ‘sincere wish’ that the Duchess of Cornwall would be Queen Camilla at Charles’s side when he is one day King.

Meanwhile, the Duchess of Cornwall has been photographed visiting Paddington Haven, a sexual assault referral centre in London today. Under Covid rules, you are no longer required to self-isolate if someone from your household tests positive as long as you are fully vaccinated. 

At the centre in West London, she met with staff as well as the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and spoke with former Love Island star Zara McDermott who discussed her experience of revenge porn and assault. 

In December, both Prince Charles and Camilla confirmed they had received their booster jabs as they urged those who are unvaccinated to get their injections as soon as possible.

It is understood the couple received their first vaccine in February last year and had their boosters in November.

‘To all those who have not yet had the vaccine – or are hesitating before getting a booster – we can only urge you to look at the evidence in our intensive care wards and listen to those who work there,’ they said.

They added: ‘We urge everyone to get vaccinated and to take up the booster, as we have done ourselves.’

Charles’s son Prince William also contracted COVID shortly after his father in 2020, with media reports saying he had been hit pretty badly by the virus. It is believed the Duke of Cambridge kept his illness private so not to alarm the public.

The Prince of Wales will now go into self-isolation for 10 days and has cancelled his scheduled engagements.

He had been due to unveil a statue of Licoricia of Winchester today before attending a civic reception at The Great Hall.

The announcement of the prince’s positive test was made just after midday, around 12 minutes before Charles was due to arrive in Winchester on the visit to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

Aides were only informed a few moments before.

More than 1,000 people were gathered behind barriers in the city’s Jewry Street, waiting to see the prince unveil a new statue of Licoricia of Winchester, a prominent Jewish moneylender who was murdered in 1277 during a period of antisemitism in the reign of Edward I that culminated in the expulsion of Jews from England in 1290.

The Queen’s representative in Hampshire, the Lord Lieutenant Nigel Atkinson, told the crowd, who groaned with disappointment when he relayed the news.

Standing at the microphone, the Lord Lieutenant told the crowd: ‘As Her Majesty’s Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, I’m afraid I have some very disappointing news for you. His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has tested positive for Covid a few minutes ago and will therefore be unable to join us today.

‘However, I do send my very best wishes on behalf of Hampshire to His Royal Highness and hope that he improved soon.’

The Lord Lieutenant, in ceremonial uniform, then read out a message from the prince.

Charles’s message said: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am so sorry that I cannot be with you today. I am desperately disappointed as I was so looking forward to marking this historic occasion with you.

‘I hope very much that I will be able to visit at a future time but for today please accept my most heartfelt apologies and my very best wishes as you mark this memorable occasion for Winchester.’

Charles wanted to be there as a symbol of his commitment to religious tolerance in modern Britain. His personal record of support for religious and ethnic minorities has been cited against the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s claims of racism inside the royal family.

The statue, by sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley, shows Licoricia holding hands with her younger son. The moneylender was murdered in 1277 but no one was ever convicted. 

After the announcement, the Prince’s personal security staff fanned out into the crowd to express his sorrow for having to cancel his visit at such late notice.

Later, in a public statement, the Prince said he was ‘deeply disappointed’ before pledging to visit the city soon.

In the wake of the Prince’s sudden isolation, Lord-Lieutenant of Hampshire, Nigel Atkinson stepped into his shoes and unveiled the life-sized bronze statue. The statue was then blessed by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

There has been no immediate comment on Charles’ condition. 

Covid reinfections – where someone tests positive for Covid-19 more than 90 days after a previous positive result – currently represent around 10 per cent of daily cases in England.

Of the 14.8 million infection episodes in England since the start of the pandemic, some 588,114 (4.0%) are likely reinfections.

Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, told the PA news agency: ‘Reinfections were always going to become a big feature of Covid.

‘The other human coronaviruses cause reinfections throughout life and this will most likely be the case with Covid.’

A reinfection is defined as someone who tests positive for Covid-19 more than 90 days after a previous positive result.

Any positive tests within 90 days of a previous one are counted as part of the same ‘infection episode’.

Covid reinfections currently represent around 10% of daily cases in England, though Prof Hunter said that ‘this is likely to be a big underestimate as, if reinfections are generally mild, they are less likely to be identified’.

He went on to say: ‘Sometimes reinfections occur because of the appearance of new escape variants that can bypass existing immunity to a degree and sometimes it may be just because immunity is waning.

‘The recent emergence of the Omicron variant has substantially increased the chances of reinfection compared to what we saw with Delta.

‘But in general we can expect reinfections to be less severe than primary infection though not always.’

Of the 14.8 million infection episodes in England since the start of the pandemic, some 588,114 (4.0%) are likely reinfections.

According to analysis by the Office for National Statistics, the risk of reinfection was 16 times higher when Omicron was the dominant strain, compared with the period when Delta was dominant.

Unvaccinated people were twice as likely to be reinfected than those who had their second vaccine dose in the previous 14 to 89 days, the study found.