LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday urged the British people to pull together even as they move apart, hoping to steady a country that has veered between alarm and complacency as the government has struggled to present a consistent message about its response to the coronavirus.

“We are all being advised to change our normal routines and regular patterns of life for the greater good of the communities we live in and, in particular, to protect the most vulnerable within them,” the queen said.

The statement — issued from Windsor Castle, where the queen sequestered herself Thursday as the outbreak bore down on London — was a familiar appeal to national solidarity from a monarch who has seen her country through traumas from World War II and Brexit to the death of Princess Diana.

But it took on added resonance at a time when Prime Minister Boris Johnson has offered a more muddled message, mixing warnings about the coronavirus with more relaxed efforts to suppress its spread. On Thursday, schools and pubs in Britain were still open, though the schools will close on Friday.