Keeping It Real

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry Lockdown With Baby Archie: Inside the Sussex Coronavirus Protocol

Latex gloves for staff, no face touching, and working on a new mental-health project—how the Sussexes are staying sane and healthy at the Vancouver Island hideaway.

Meghan Markle is having her Canadian staff wear latex gloves, Prince Harry feels “helpless” and is worried about his aging father and grandparents catching the coronavirus, and baby Archie is being protected from “any unnecessary stress and tension” as the Sussexes batten down the hatches for a period of self-isolation.

A new report giving a fresh insight into the Sussexes’ life inside their Canadian compound adds that both Meghan and Harry are trying to figure out how best to use their position to help people cope with what they see as the unfolding mental-health crisis that coronavirus is triggering.

A close friend told DailyMail.com that Harry is feeling “a bit helpless and isolated out in the middle of nowhere” after leaving the U.K. earlier this month, and is worried for his 71-year-old father, Prince Charles, as well as his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who turns 94 next month and has retreated to Windsor Castle.

He is said to be “grateful” he got to spend time with his family “before all this insanity began,” the insider said. 

He has been in touch with his elderly relatives and told them to “stay safe and to take extra precautions,” an insider tells DailyMail.com.

Inside their luxury Vancouver Island hideaway, meanwhile, Markle is taking precautions of her own, making “everyone on their team, the people who buy groceries and run errands, wear latex gloves at all times and are to follow a strict hygiene protocol… Only a select few will be able to interact with her, Harry, and Archie. She said she’s keeping it to a bare minimum.”

The friend added, “Meghan said just because they are isolating themselves, it doesn’t mean they can’t help. They aren’t just sitting around at home doing nothing… Meghan told her inner circle that what's happening in the world right now is a mental-health crisis. She said they are working with a mental-health nonprofit to create some sort of online support system for those most vulnerable, like new mothers suffering from postpartum depression.”

The friend added that the couple are trying to stay calm for the sake of their child: “She said panicking won’t do any good. It’s just not an option in her household. She doesn’t want Archie picking up on any unnecessary stress and tension. Her home is her sanctuary, and it’s a place of peace and calm.”

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Tom SykesEuropean Editor at Large

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