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LOL! The Japanese and many Koreans and Chinese seem to be terrified of having contact with the outside air. When I did the Camino de Santiago, you could pick out the Japanese or Korean pilgrims because they were wearing masks, huge hats, and strange canvas sleeves that covered their arms. Partly this was to avoid getting a suntan, since being darker was considered being lower-class among the Japanese and the Koreans (probably the Chinese, too, although I saw only a couple, not mask or protective suit wearing, who were actually Chinese Catholics living in the US).

However, the reason they wear masks a lot in Japan and China (not Korea, to my knowledge) is because they hope this will protect them from their awful air pollution. It might help with that, if the soot particles are bigger than virus particles, but it’s no use against a virus. However, they’ve being doing this for so long that it doesn’t bother them.

That said, they only wear them outdoors, not like Crazy Uncle Joe, who wears his on Zoom meetings in case the virus can teletransport. And who is freaking out every Dem in the country and making them go out and order another gross of masks.

Years ago I visited Japan to see an electron microscope that our lab was considering purchasing. I noted many wearing masks. I asked my host about this and he told me that people were trying not to spread colds and flu. Cities like Tokyo have a high enough population density that it can be a real problem. People were trying to prevent the spread. of their illness. Think of it as serving your neighbor.

My wife caught covid-19 just before Christmas last year because many of her students had attended a party the week before Christmas and they infected other students and faculty. She was running a high fever. Happily, she has been teaching for several years and her immune system is pretty strong. Still, she was very sick and down for almost a week. A little compassion and consideration for those around you makes healthy communities.

I admit that I got tired of seeing Dr. Faucci on TV. Dr Birx seem less enamored with the publicity. The initial briefings from Gov Coumo were helpful, but it seemed like he got enamored with the limelight. The Department of Health did a good job reporting case counts and many of us used their data analysis (nicely collated by the New York Times) to let us do our own analyses for state and county results. We the people fund this work so we deserve access to the data.