Prince William has gotten a lot of praise in the past few months, but it seems that time is over for now.
The Sun revealed over the weekend that the Duke of Cambridge was diagnosed with COVID-19 back in April. Apparently, he was diagnosed just after his father, Prince Charles, and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson received their own diagnoses.
Clearly, this would have been a huge deal. If the first two in line to the throne occupied by a 94-year-old monarch were sick with the virus, this would have been a major cause for concern. It also might have changed how seriously some people took the health crisis.
Still, the news hasn't come out until now. Buckingham Palace has stayed tight-lipped, but it will eventually have to speak out. It's believed this was kept under wraps to not cause a panic. Some have even cited William's right to privacy.
As we know, right-to-privacy conversations are a touchy subject in the royal family. It looks like it will get even touchier as people outraged by the hiding of this information speak out.
It's time to take a look back at Prince William's spring. You do remember springtime, right? It was a carefree time when we were all still naive about the year to come. Just as people were starting to really grasp what COVID-19 was, Prince William and Kate Middleton were in Ireland.
During the visit, William joked about the coronavirus. This was about a week before most places around the world started hunkering down.
"I bet everyone's like, 'I've got coronavirus, I'm dying,' and you're like, 'No, you've just got a cough,'" he joked to a first responder.
"It does seem quite dramatic about coronavirus at the moment. Is it being a little hyped up, do you think, by the media?"
"By the way, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are spreading coronavirus. Sorry!" he continued.
"We're keeping an eye on that, so do tell us if we need to stop."
As we now know, fate stepped in and checked William in a big way. Not only did his father test positive for the illness later that month, but William himself also contracted the virus. He apparently tested positive in the early days of April.
The Sun reports that William had a tough go of the illness, at times struggling to breathe. Though he has clearly recovered, there are many people who are looking back at that time and getting angry at the risk William posed to others. Here are some of the things William did after returning from Ireland, when this was all still very funny to him.
William came back and went to Commonwealth Day … with the 94-year-old Queen, his 71-year-old father, and his brother and sister-in-law, who had a 1-year-old at home. Just days later, the country shut down.
Throughout April, William held engagements virtually, for which he was applauded. However, those engagements saw him unmasked and in close proximity to his wife on several occasions.
Kensington Palace also later shared that William, Kate, and their children "visited the Sandringham Estate where they packed up and delivered food parcels to isolated pensioners in the local area."
Others were angered because they feel there's a right to know the health status of the second in line to the throne. Among them were royal reporters, who were surprisingly vocal with their opinions of the hidden diagnosis.
"It seems Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis did not contract #coronavirus – even though William had. (Although given he kept his diagnosis secret for 6 months – we’ll have to take their word for it,)" sniped ITV's royal editor, Chris Sharp.
"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," poised Richard Palmer of the Daily Express.
"If Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, or Joe Biden had covered up a positive test for Covid-19, many people would not be praising them for 'not wanting to worry people.'
"Interesting range of views on an excellent scoop by The Sun. If royals are irrelevant then is it a private matter? But if they are important taxpayer-funded people we should listen to, shouldn't we expect the same of them as we do of prime ministers and presidents?"
While royal reporters continue to slam the alleged cover-up, some faithful royal fans are arguing it's not a cover-up at all.
"This was a conscious decision to avoid further worry at a time when the UK already had its Prime Minister critically ill & the heir to the throne also with COVID," a royal fan account shared.
"Prince William is not the head of state, he is not an elected official, he is not even first in line to the throne. He had no obligation to announce this. And he DID NOT cover it up – when someone asked, Kensington Palace confirmed the story."
Royal reporter Robert Jobson disagrees:
"The fact is the palace lied about it. KP were are asked several times by several media outlets whether Prince William had contracted the virus and were told categorically 'no.' The decision was taken to LIE, thus creating a problem of trust going forward. Poor judgment."
He later added: "If the palace is prepared to LIE about an issue as serious as Prince William, second in line to the throne, contracting COVID-19 what else have they LIED about when questioned by the press and why should the media believe any denials going forward? This raises serious issues."
Then there is, as always, the Harry and Meghan factor. Some have pointed to the recent discussion of privacy in Robert Lacey's Battle of Brothers about how William believed Harry was breaking royal rules by keeping the time of his child's birth private.
Telegraph royal expert Camilla Tominey wrote, "Moreover, a royal birth of this magnitude, involving two of The Firm's most high profile and popular figures, was never going to be a 'private' event."
"Royals aren't private individuals," she argued.
"They're part-subsidized by the taxpayer – therefore it is not just interesting to the public to find out what they're up to – but legitimately in the public interest."
Now people are wondering why the same doesn't apply to William.
At the end of the day, we can't change what's already happened. William kept his illness quiet, and it seemed to hold out long enough for him to avoid serious backlash. That said, this doesn't seem like the kind of thing anyone's going to let go of quickly. This could very well rear its head when he least expects it to, and now he has no choice but to prepare for that.
