Princess Anne’s husband is Covid positive, no Christmas with the queen

TAll the projects that Queen Elizabeth had in mind for the Christmas holidays are sinking between the waves of the pandemic. After abolishing lunch at Windsor and the trip to Sandrigham, this time the sovereign will have to do without the company of her daughter, la Princess Anna, who was quarantined because her husband, Sir Timothy Laurence, tested positive for Covid 19.

Timothy Laurence, 66, a now retired Royal Navy Vice Admiral, is in solitary confinement at the Gatcombe Park residence in Gloucestershire, where he lives with Anna, 71. A source reports that on Monday he sent emails to some people he had been in contact with to inform them of his positive tests after being infected himself.

According to the rules now in force in Great Britain, the isolation was shortened from ten to seven days. Patients who are consecutively negative in tests carried out on the sixth and seventh day of isolation can interrupt the quarantine. But Elizabeth II is 95 years old and therefore, even if Sir Timothy Laurence turns out to be negative since Christmas, he will probably not be allowed to go to Windsor Castle. Without considering, moreover, the possibility of a possible development of the disease in Princess Anna herself.

This news throws even more uncertainty about the days of celebration that the Queen dreamed of spending with her loved ones. On her first Christmas without Prince Philip, with whom she was married since 1947, a few days ago she had to give up the traditional stay in Sandrigham with her family as a “precautionary measure”, given the surge in Covid cases caused by the spread of the Omicron variant. Before that, she had been forced to cancel the customary pre-Christmas lunch at Windsor Castle, which was said to be attended by up to 50 members of the royal family. Eventually the Queen opted to stay in Windsor. Sources at Buckingham Palace claim that some members of the family would have joined her there, but it is not yet known who. Now Princess Anne’s quarantine will force Elizabeth to review her plans again or, if nothing else, the list of guests at the castle.

After a year marked by the pandemic and mourning for the loss of Philip, the sovereign had health problems in the autumn that prevented her from participating in a series of very important public events. And this will be the second Christmas she will stay in Windsor after the Royal Family Celebrations have been celebrated in Sandrigham, Norfolk for so many years.

It is true that Queen Elizabeth never publicly complains, but perhaps this time he would have every reason to do so.