Apr. 13. 2020

Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized Sunday evening after 10 days of battling the coronavirus, unnerving a country that had gathered to watch Queen Elizabeth II rally fellow Britons to confront the pandemic and reassure them that when the crisis finally ebbed, “we will meet again.”

“I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time,” the queen said, “a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all.”

Her remarks were taped at 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.

Speaking in terms both personal and historical, the queen likened the enforced separation of Britain’s lockdown to the sacrifices families made during World War II, when parents sent away their children for their own safety. She urged a country that has approached these measures with some nonchalance to commit itself to the cause.

The queen’s speech was only the fourth time in her 68-year reign in which she 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.

“I hope in the years to come, everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge,” the queen said.