The real problem over here is that people don't wash their hands. There's usually no soap (or toilet paper. That's fun) in bathrooms because people assume people will just steal such things. No public trash cans either because they claim people will just dump all their trash from their house there.

So, people have dirty hands and go out sick because they wore a mask, and that makes everything okay.

A lot of people here just wear masks preventatively too, especially on trains and in crowded places. Pre-covid.

For a while masks seemed to be mostly gone but as of a couple months ago they're back in full force with government mandates and everything.