One thing i admired when traveling to south east asia in the years before covid - people wearing masks to protect others in case they got any kind of respirator

One thing i admired when traveling to south east asia in the years before covid - people wearing masks to protect others in case they got any kind of respiratory sickness, or protecting themselves. In comparison, even in progressive countries like Switzerland, during initial phase of Covid people wearing masks to work and outside were sometimes badly ridiculed by natives young and old, and in some cases even fired from work for 'spreading panic' (I know a guy on immunosupressants who had no other choice). In comparison with usual western coughing and sneezing on all public transport it seemed extremely considerate and I've expressed numerous times the wish west would adopt this at least a bit. But maybe my optics is flawed and this was an after-effect of SARS which missed west completely and before that, it was same situation there.