Empress Masako of Japan, visiting the U.K. as part of a state visit with her husband Emperor Naruhito Tuesday, surprised onlookers when she rode into central London in a carriage with Queen Camilla wearing a face mask.
However, before full-blown pandemic PTSD set in, an official source at Buckingham Palace told The Daily Beast Tuesday that the Empress was wearing the mask due to an allergy to horse hair rather than for pathogen-related reasons.
The horse-drawn carriage ride into London saw the Empress and Camilla take one carriage while King Charles, who appeared determined to brush off the minor inconvenience of his cancer diagnosis, travelled with the Emperor.
