April 5, 2020 | Queen Elizabeth II delivers COVID-19 address
On April 5, 2020, Queen Elizabeth II delivered a rare speech to the British nation and to the Commonwealth as coronavirus continues to sow fear and grip lives around the world. The four-minute speech was written by the Queen with her private secretary Sir Edward Young and was pre-recorded, filmed by a single cameraman wearing protective equipment. All other technical staff were in another room. The Queen has made a reference to her first radio broadcast in 1940 , when as a 14-year-old, she spoke to comfort children who were being taken from London to the countryside to escape bombing during the German air raids. The monarch thanked people for following government rules to stay at home and praised those "coming together to help others". She also thanked key workers, saying "every hour" of work "brings us closer to a return to more normal times". Royal biographer Sarah Bedell Smith called the speech “moving, deeply personal, sympathetic—very much in her own
