Since the start of the pandemic, the Queen's staff have been doing everything they can to protect the monarch from Covid-19.
However, she's now tested positive for the virus and is isolating at Windsor Castle.
In keeping with her normal "business as usual" approach, the 95-year-old intends to carry out light duties while she isolates in line with government guidelines.
Fortunately, the Queen has been fully-vaccinated and Buckingham Palace said yesterday she was suffering only "mild symptoms".
But at the start of the pandemic in March 2020 when little was known about the virus and no vaccines were available, a protective bubble was thrown around the Queen and the now late Prince Philip in a bid to stop them from contracting Covid.
It saw around 22 royal staff sacrificing their home lives to stay isolated at Windsor in order to assist the Queen during lockdown.
The group was christened 'HMS Bubble', a joke the Queen and Prince Philip were said to find very amusing, by Vice-Admiral Sir Tony Johnstone-Burt, master of the household.
In an email to staff, the former naval officer likened their situation to being out at sea.
He wrote: “There are 22 Royal Household staff inside the Bubble, and it struck me that our predicament is not dissimilar to my former life in the Royal Navy on a long overseas deployment.
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“Indeed, the challenges that we are facing, whether self-isolating alone at home, or with our close household and families, have parallels with being at sea, away from home for many months, and having to deal with a sense of dislocation, anxiety and uncertainty."
In April last year, when Prince Philip died aged 99, HMS Bubble was still in place and the close aides who isolated at Windsor are said to have been a source of support to her.
Among those closest to her, the Telegraph reported, were her senior dresser Angela Kelly, head groom, Terry Pendry, private secretary Sir Edward Young and page of the backstairs, Paul Whybrew.
However, with almost no Covid restrictions in place in England and members of the Royal Family, including the Queen, now conducting face-to-face duties, a source told the Daily Mail that HMS Bubble had been "relaxed of late".
The explained: "It's bubble-ish. If you are going to the castle or coming into direct contact with the Queen then you are required to test but, in general, restrictions are clearly not as rigorous as they were this time a year or 18 months ago."
Meanwhile, royal expert Roya Nikkhah told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the Queen herself understood HMS wasn't "tenable" for the future.
She said: "There has been a lot of talk about this HMS Bubble around the Queen for a couple of years which has been very successful, but I think long term the Queen understood more than anyone it wasn't tenable to continue.
'It placed a huge demand on pressures on staff who had to isolate and be away from their families for a long time.
'So I think she was very sanguine about that and probably inevitably accepted that she might be at risk at some point, but fingers crossed she'll be well – she's triple-vaxxed – and carry on."
It's believed the Queen's Covid diagnosis came after a number of her team have also been hit by the virus.
But Buckingham Palace has said the monarch expects to be at her desk continuing light duties over the coming days.
The Queen holds an audience with Boris Johnson most Wednesdays, either in person or by telephone, and has recently been holding one or two diplomatic audiences a week with ambassadors by video-link, and is likely to do so this week if well enough.
She will also be given a digest of the day’s news from the early-morning radio and television bulletins, and a selection of papers, with her photo gracing most of the front pages after the announcement that she has Covid.
Her diagnosis follows a string of cases among the royal family, with the Prince of Wales meeting his mother in the week he tested positive, and the Duchess of Cornwall also isolating after contracting the virus.
The monarch, who for almost two years avoided contracting Covid, has served as a symbol of national stability during the pandemic, delivering two rare televised addresses to the nation weeks apart.
