The Queen has postponed virtual audiences for second time in a week after apositive Covid test but continues with "light duties".

On Sunday, Buckingham Palace confirmed that the 95-year-old monarch had tested positive for the virus and experiencing ‘mild cold-like symptoms’. 

Two engagements which were due to now take place on Thursday will happen on a later date.

On Tuesday, the Queen also cancelled virtual engagements but she did have her telephone audience with the prime minister on Wednesday.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: "The two virtual audiences that had previously been scheduled to take place today will now be rescheduled for a later date.

"Her Majesty is continuing with light duties. No other engagements are scheduled for this week."

The Queen had her first vaccine in January 2021 and is believed to be triple-vaccinated against the virus.

Concerns for the nation’s longest reigning sovereign have been heightened given her age, frailer appearance of late and recent health scare.

The Queen has a run of high-profile engagements coming up.

She is set to host the Diplomatic Reception on March 2, where she will meet hundreds of members of the Diplomatic Corps at Windsor.

The event has already been scaled back from tiara and white tie to lounge suit and cocktail dress.

But Buckingham Palace has yet to comment whether the Queen will still attend.

The Queen is also due to be at the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey on March 14, and then the Duke of Edinburgh’s memorial service, also at the Abbey, on March 29.

The nation’s longest reigning monarch recently spent more than three months resting, on doctors’ orders.

In the autumn she pulled out of attending the COP26 climate change summit, the Festival of Remembrance and then the Remembrance Sunday Cenotaph service due to a sprained back. She also missed the Church of England’s General Synod.

The Queen now regularly uses a walking stick and has been pictured looking frailer recently.

She remarked during a Windsor Castle audience last week: “Well, as you can see, I can’t move.”

Her lights duties as head of state include working from her red boxes, sent to her every day and containing policy papers, Foreign Office telegrams, letters and other State papers which have to be read and, where necessary, approved and signed.