I'm going to post this here, but feel free to tell me if I'm derailing from the topic.
I'm currently on vacation in Japan, and I see a lot more masks than in the States. Almost every local wears them on the trains, and most of them even outdoors. When I landed at Tokyo-Haneda I received the pink health card telling me what to do if I develop symptoms and/or test positive. I wish the US could care so much about public health - the average Japanese person is even more COVID-cautious than I am!
Even on non-COVID topics, the train system is probably 20 years ahead of Europe and maybe 50 ahead of the States. So there's that. I wish we could be more like Japan.
Japan and South Korea have a very virus-vigilant culture from long before Covid. So it's not even much of a change of pace for them to wear masks because of this virus.
The previous cultural norms likely helped them a lot and put them in overall the best response during the early days of the virus, but I'm not sure how much of what you're seeing now is Covid and how much is their typical winter behavior.
