All masked up

When we saw the video below, we were bemused that the royals were hard at the money-making venture known as graduation, but were all masked up and gloved.

A remarkable number of masks in evidence in this event.

Then we saw a story at Khaosod that might explain the precautions.

It says that Julie Jensen (known in Thailand as Princess Ubolratana) said “her daughter underwent a test for Covid-19 after she fell ill.” The result was negative

As far as we can tell, and we may have missed a lot in all the mayhem, this represents the first (semi-)royal comment on the virus. Julie stated: “The Covid-19 outbreak situation seems to be getting worse. [no kidding] There are probably many more people who are infected but not in the reports… [a criticism of the regime’s failures?].” She added layperson’s advice that “rigorous testing was necessary in containing the outbreak.”

That may be correct, but we would have thought that the usual royal role – even for a semi-royal – is to provide support for “the nation” and “the people” rather than engaging in unconstitutional activism.