In general, you wear a surgical mask only if you’re sick. If you’re not sick, there’s no need for a mask, and wearing one doesn’t really prevent a virus from getting into your body. Unless it’s a properly fitted mask, there will be many gaps through which a virus can enter (you breath in much more air at the sides of the mask than through the filter in the centre of the mask). Also, unless you’re covering your eyes, viruses can enter through your eyes as well.
But, it’s probably a cultural thing about wearing masks. In China, it’s probably useless to tell people not to wear masks, because no one will listen. You can see this on the WHO web-site. They have a COVID-19 page where they put all COVID-19 related information for easy access. On that page, there’s a link to Protect yourself, which has a series of articles, videos, and infographics on how you can protect yourself during this pandemic. One of the pages is When and how to use masks. On that page, there’s a series of 7 infographics relating to masks:
What’s interesting is that if you go to the Chinese WHO site, showing the same information, item (2) above, When to use a mask, is missing!
So I think even the WHO knows it’s useless to give advice on when to wear a mask!
But, they do have a paragraph, right at top of the infographics page, telling us when we should wear a mask:
什么时候戴口罩？
- 如果您身体健康，仅在照顾2019-nCoV疑似感染者时才需要戴口罩。
- 如果您咳嗽或打喷嚏，应戴口罩。
- 为有效防护，除了戴口罩外，还需要经常用含酒精成分的免洗洗手液或肥皂和清水洗手。
- 如果佩戴口罩，必须了解如何使用和适当处置口罩。
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