Why Asians wear surgical masks in public (2014)
Surgical masks don&#x27;t protect you against airborne viruses, but if you wear one when you have a cold it <i>does</i> help protect other people from viruses in your snot&#x2F;water particles.<p>The facts about this are fairly well known in Japan now (although there may still be people who wear masks in the misguided hope that they won&#x27;t catch other people&#x27;s colds despite), so it&#x27;s not very accurate to try to imply that use of surgical masks in Japan is purely due to some sort of failure to understand germ theory or something like that.