I definitely hope masks will be here to stay.

I'm born and raised in Canada but my family is from Hong Kong. We visit the "old country" every few years, and masks are commonplace there. It's probably a big reason why the city has seen relatively few covid outbreaks despite being the densest city in the world.

I would LOVE for masks to be commonplace in the West. I understand exactly what you mean when you say sometimes you're technically sick but you're not sick enough to miss work. I once tried wearing a mask to a job where I had to talk to patrons, and my manager told me to either take off the mask or go home. I think my manager sympathized with where I was coming from, but was worried about the optics of a customer-facing person wearing a mask. I wish this wasn't such a big deal so that I could both do my job and not spread my germs everywhere.

Thanks for sharing your perspective! I'm glad this habit is taking off in the West. I also welcome it as a person with high anxiety...sometimes it's nice not having people see your face, haha.