Early in 2020 as the pandemic began to surge around the world, Asia and the West were divided on whether people should wear facemasks to try and stop/slow transmission of the new virus. In short, Asian countries went very heavy on masks early on, while most Western countries initially said they wouldn’t help and kept saying so in increasingly forceful ways until suddenly reversing course in April/May 2020. I think most people have forgotten how extreme this divergence in views was, so I’ve tried to summarise it all here.