WINDSOR, England — Queen Elizabeth bade farewell to Prince Philip at a funeral on Saturday that celebrated his seven decades of service and gave grandsons William and Harry the chance to talk in public for the first time since claims of racism threw the family into crisis.

Queen Elizabeth, dressed in black and in a white trimmed black face mask, stood alone, head bowed as her husband of 73 years was lowered into the Royal Vault of St. George’s Chapel in a service attended by senior royals including heir Prince Charles.

Prince Harry, who flew from the United States to attend the funeral, walked and talked with his brother William and wife Kate at the end of the service — the first time they have spoken in public since Prince Harry and his wife Meghan gave an explosive interview to Oprah Winfrey last month.

That crisis came as Philip lay in hospital. Officially known as the Duke of Edinburgh, he died aged 99 on April 9. “We have been inspired by his unwavering loyalty to our Queen, by his service to the Nation and the Commonwealth, by his courage, fortitude and faith,” Dean of Windsor David Conner said.

Philip, who married Elizabeth in 1947, helped the young queen adapt the monarchy to the changing times of the post-World War II era as the loss of empire and the decline of deference challenged the world’s most prominent royal family.

In 1997, the queen described Prince Philip as her “strength and stay” over their decades of marriage. Now 94, she has reigned for 69 years.

Her husband’s coffin was borne to the chapel on a bespoke Land Rover Defender TD 130 in military green that Philip himself helped to design, as a minute gun fired eight times.

Philip’s children and grandchildren followed behind on foot, evoking memories of the 1997 funeral of Princess Diana when Princes William and Harry — then just 15 and 12 — walked behind their mother’s coffin.

His naval cap and sword lay on top of the coffin, which was covered with the Duke of Edinburgh’s personal standard featuring the Danish coat of arms, the Greek cross, Edinburgh Castle and the stripes of the Mountbatten family. A wreath of white roses, lilies and jasmine from the queen also adorned the coffin.

There were just 30 mourners inside the chapel because of continuing coronavirus restrictions in Britain. As the service began at 3 p.m.(1400 GMT), Prime Minister Boris Johnson observed a minute’s silence, along with millions of Britons.

Before the procession, military bands spaced out across the quadrangle of Windsor Castle in brilliant sunshine to play the prince’s chosen music, including “I Vow To Thee My Country,” “Jerusalem” and “Nimrod.”

HARRY AND WILLIAM
The four-person choir sang a sailors’ hymn, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” Shortly before the coffin was lowered into the Royal Vault, the Russian “Kontakion of the Departed,” a hymn of the Orthodox and Eastern churches, echoed around the ancient church.

There were no eulogies, just brief words of praise for the prince from the dean of Windsor and Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby in their prayers.

Queen Elizabeth has been widowed just as she grapples with one of the gravest crises to hit the royal family in decades — allegations of racism and neglect by it from Prince Harry and Meghan, his American-born wife.

In last month’s interview the couple, who quit royal duties and moved to California last year, laid bare their perceptions of the family’s attitudes in what amounted to a critique of the old-fashioned customs of an ancient institution.

They accused one unnamed royal of making a racist comment, and said Meghan’s pleas for help when she felt suicidal were ignored.

Meghan said she had been silenced by “the Firm” while Harry said his father, Prince Charles, had refused to take his calls. Harry said both Charles and his brother William were trapped in the royal family.

Meghan, who is pregnant and was advised by her doctor not to travel, watched the funeral at home in California, a source familiar with the situation said.

As the service ended, buglers from the Royal Marines sounded the “Last Post” and then “Action Stations” to honor the late duke’s World War II naval service, before choir sang the national anthem.

Queen Elizabeth left for the castle’s apartments in her car but other royals decided to walk up the hill to the main part of Windsor Castle.

Prince William, his wife Kate, and Harry chatted as they walked. Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, swiftly stepped away to allow the brothers to talk further. It was not possible to hear what they were saying.

FAMILY IN MOURNING
The palace emphasized beforehand that while the occasion would have the due pageantry that marks the passing of a senior royal, it remained an occasion for a mourning family to mark the passing of a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather.

Mourners eschewed the tradition of wearing military uniforms, a step newspapers said was to prevent embarrassment to Harry, who despite serving two tours in Afghanistan during his army career, is not entitled to wear a uniform because he was stripped of his honorary military titles.

Prince Andrew, who stepped down from public duties in 2019 over controversy surrounding what he termed his “ill-judged” association with late US financier Jeffrey Epstein, had wanted to wear an admiral’s uniform at the funeral, media reported.

Prince Andrew sat closest to the queen.

Philip’s dedication to his duty earned him widespread popularity in Britain, but he was also criticized by some for a number of off-the-cuff racist or abrupt comments which shocked princes, priests and presidents.

“He was authentically himself, with a seriously sharp wit, and could hold the attention of any room due to his charm and also because you never knew what he might say next,” Prince Harry said earlier this week of his grandfather. — Reuters

CORONAVIRUS vaccines were just rolling out in December when more than 1,000 staffers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles volunteered for a sweeping study. The goal: pinpoint how immune reactions to the jab might vary.

By last month, a clear pattern in the data “popped out at us,” said research leader Susan Cheng. Those who had recovered from COVID-19 responded to their first shot so robustly that the results rivaled never-infected colleagues who had received both shots. The implication was clear. If you’ve had COVID, you may only need one of the two doses recommended by Pfizer and Moderna.

“We did not expect that this was going to jump out like a smoking gun,” said Ms. Cheng, who co-authored the Nature Medicine write-up. In fact, if you already had the virus, your immune response after one vaccine is likely to be even better than a never-infected person’s after two, according to Italian research just out in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The issue of giving only a single dose to people who have had COVID has become all the more urgent since safety concerns have been raised about Johnson & Johnson’s and AstraZeneca’s vaccines. The implications at a time of strained global supply are striking: giving previously infected people just one mRNA vaccine shot could free up more than 110 million doses worldwide, according to a calculation by University of Maryland School of Medicine immunologist Mohammad Sajadi and colleagues.

‘REMEMBERING COVID’
Mr. Sajadi co-authored one of the recent studies that fit into a recent flurry of findings all pointing in the same direction: The immune system in people who’ve had COVID “remembers” the virus, so a first vaccine acts as a powerful booster for existing defenses. “The data is very clear,” Mr. Sajadi said. “Every study has shown you get a very clear and strong memory response.”

Since Feb., several European countries — including France, Spain, Italy and Germany — have adopted policies giving COVID survivors just one dose of the two-dose vaccines.

In Israel, a world leader on coronavirus vaccinations, health authorities initially withheld vaccines altogether from recovered COVID patients, but in Feb. recommended they receive one shot. New research there suggests that the booster vaccine adds protection against newer variants that originated in the UK, South Africa and Brazil.

“We think that our study supports the recommendation to administer one vaccine dose to recovered individuals to protect against the original and SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern,” Michal Mandelboim, head of Israel’s National Center for Influenza and Respiratory Viruses, said in an email. A study in “Science” found that in COVID survivors, vaccinations massively boosted immunity against variants.

In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) still recommends two vaccine doses for people who have had Covid, but the mounting evidence that one vaccine could be enough is under discussion. The US has administered enough doses for 31% of its population, while Israel has given enough for 57%, according to the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker.

DATA NEEDED
In a blog post, National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins raised the possibility that giving survivors a single dose could “help to extend vaccine supply and get more people vaccinated sooner.”

“But any serious consideration of this option will require more data,” he cautioned in February.

Since then, one study after another has reinforced the single-vaccine-for-survivors idea, though some skeptics have pointed out that it is logistically simpler to just give everyone two doses than to figure out who needs only one.

In the US, vaccine supplies are relatively copious, Mr. Sajadi said. But “for other countries, especially places that are having a hard time getting vaccines, this is really still an important question. And it’s also an important question in general because you don’t want to just give someone a medical intervention they don’t need.”

If a patient who’d had COVID asked Mr. Sajadi at this point whether they needed a second vaccine, he said, he’d say it would make sense to skip it if nothing in their medical history indicated issues with immune responses.

Ms. Cheng at Cedars-Sinai said she would still default to the CDC guidance calling for two vaccines, even for people who’ve had Covid. The data does suggest, however, that one dose could be enough, she said — and that could be true for other types of people as well: “I think we’re just at the tip of the iceberg of figuring out who they are.” — Bloomberg