Revealing Prince William’s coronavirus illness would have been a public service
At one point while he was sick, the prince “struggled to breathe,“ according to the Sun, the British tabloid that broke the story. William, second in line to the throne, was stricken shortly after his father, Prince Charles, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson contracted the virus in late March. William, now 38, isolated at his country home, in Norfolk, England, and was treated by palace doctors.
William’s illness became public after he reportedly told an observer about it at a recent event, saying, “There were important things going on, and I didn’t want to worry anyone.“
There is a logic to some arguments against disclosure: Kensington Palace wanted to avoid further public anxiety when the immediate heir to the throne and prime minister were also known to be sick. The royal family might not have wanted to steal thunder from the queen’s rare broadcast in early April thanking front-line workers and reassuring Britons in lockdown that “better days will return.“ And many royal medical procedures and illnesses have been made public only after having been addressed.
It makes no sense, however, to have kept William’s illness a secret in the spring, when disclosing it might have profoundly affected people’s understanding of the pandemic threat.
Coronavirus infections have risen sharply in Britain, where the Office for National Statistics estimated last week that 1 in 100 people in England have covid-19, up from 1 in 200 about a month ago. In July, the share was 1 in 2,300.
With the number of covid cases on course to overtake the National Health Service’s capacity, the prime minister recently announced a four-week lockdown — to begin Thursday — and the closure of nonessential businesses. Criticism of this second lockdown (the government is “giving in to the scientific advisers,” opined a former leader of Johnson’s own Conservative Party) is itself an argument for telling the public about William’s experience.
The United Kingdom has recorded more than 1 million covid cases and more than 46,000 deaths. In April, when Johnson was moved to intensive care, Britain had recorded some 48,000 confirmed cases and about 4,900 deaths.
Knowing that the virus had sickened William, an athletic former helicopter pilot with three young children, might have influenced people’s understanding of the pandemic threat. The share of Britons wearing face masks in public didn’t climb above 50 percent until the first week of July, according to U.K. government data. It was 98 percent in the last week of October, but in late May, weeks after William’s illness, it was only 28 percent.
“After seeing medics and testing positive — which was obviously quite a shock given how fit and healthy he is — William was determined it should be business as usual,” the Sun’s source said.
Keeping calm and carrying on was the wrong move. Despite his illness, William and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, connected virtually to several royal duties in April. But when William went to a pub in July to promote reopening from Britain’s first pandemic lockdown, he did not wear a mask. He has gone maskless at other events, including when he joined his 94-year-old grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, last month for her first appearance in public since March. (During their visit to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in southern England, the royals met with scientists participating in the U.K. coronavirus response.) A palace spokesman said that social distancing guidelines were followed and that everyone expected to encounter the queen had been tested for covid.
That’s the same strategy the White House has employed for those encountering the president — and that didn’t prevent him from catching the virus.
There’s a larger issue with keeping William’s illness secret, as some royal correspondents have noted. In the wake of Charles’s diagnosis, reporters asked several times if William “had contracted the virus and were told categorically ‘no,’“ tweeted Robert Jobson. “If the future King contracts a potentially fatal virus that the entire world is worried about during a lockdown and he and those around him cover it up, that raises serious questions about whether we can trust anything he or his advisers say,” tweeted Richard Palmer.
Had the palace not wanted to reveal William’s illness, it could have avoided the question rather than giving an untrue answer. Being more forthcoming would have preserved royal credibility — and sent a valuable message about public health.
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