world

Updated: Apr 06, 2020 03:46 IST

Queen Elizabeth assured people in the Commonwealth in a rare broadcast on Sunday evening that “we will succeed” in the fight against coronavirus, and rallied Britons by citing pride in the country’s past to stay resolute in the present.

The queen, 93, delivered the assurance as the death toll in the United Kingdom rose to 4,934 and the number of cases to 47,806. She and Prince Philip have moved to the Windsor Castle from Buckingham Palace as the UK hunkered down in homes during the three-week lockdown.

Click here for the complete coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic

Queen Elizabeth is the head of the Commonwealth comprising India and 53 countries.

She said: “Across the Commonwealth and around the world, we have seen heart-warming stories of people coming together to help others, be it through delivering food parcels and medicines, checking on neighbours, or converting businesses to help the relief effort”.

“We will succeed - and that success will belong to every one of us. We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again”, the monarch added.

Noting crises overcome in the past, she said the coronavirus challenge is different: “This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal”.

Besides the annual Christmas Day broadcast, the special message, recorded in close consultation with Downing Street and by crew in protective equipment, was the fourth such special message during her 68-year reign. She recalled delivering her first address in 1940 as a teenager during the Second World War.

“I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any”.

“That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country. The pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future”, she said.