How the Queen summed up her coronavirus experience in just four words

The Queen has returned to face-to-face engagements after months in isolation at Windsor Castle, followed by a brief stint at Balmoral and Sandringham.

Since the coronavirus pandemic began, she and other royals have been forced to take a step back from public duties for their own safety, and the safety of others.

The royals have, for all intents and purposes, kept calm and carried on.

But at her first in-person royal engagement in seven months, Her Majesty was frank about her opinion of the pandemic.

She called COVID-19 "this horrible new thing", refusing to mince words about the virus that has claimed more than one million lives worldwide.

Though she and the royal family have remained mostly untouched, with only Prince Charles briefly contracting the virus, the Queen was clear about her feelings.

Her Majesty was joined by Prince William for her return to public duties, the pair coming together for a visit to a new counter-terrorism facility in Porton Down, near Salisbury.

They both didn't wear medical masks for the outing, which Buckingham Palace says was a decision made after consulting Palace medics and those who work at the facility.

However, the royals did practice social distancing during the outing and the Queen wore gloves in all the photos released from the outing.

Her Majesty has reigned for almost seven decades now and will celebrate her 68th year on the throne next June, but the pandemic has shaken up the monarchy in a way she has never seen before.

Forced to retreat to their royal residences and abandon the public duties that make up most of their calendar, the royals have been experiencing the same "unprecedented times" as the rest of us.

What's more, the ageing monarch – who turned 94 in April – has been forced to lead the UK through the pandemic in the twilight years of her reign.

She has delivered multiple national addresses from isolation and has had to adapt to supporting her nation virtually, a responsibility few great-grandmothers have to bear.

To Her Majesty, coronavirus is a "horrible new thing" not just for her nation and people, but for the institution she serves.

It has forced the monarchy to change the way it does just about everything, and came at a time of great upheaval for the royal family.

In the six months before the pandemic began in truth, Prince Andrew was linked to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle quit royal life.

Indeed, 2020 has been a truly unprecedented time for the Queen, and we really can't blame her for being blunt about the pandemic; "this horrible new thing."

In fact, we probably couldn't sum it up better ourselves.