Japanese Surgical Mask Culture

I soon learned that folks in Japan wear masks for a few reasons...

* They are sick and don't want their evil germs to infect others.
* They have hay fever and don't want the evil pollen to affect them.
* They are not sick but don't want to catch any evil germs from others.
* They have a tooth missing and want to cover it up.
* Their breath smells like a fart and want to diffuse the smell.
* They have no mouth and don't want people to know that they are from Mars.

The main reason however is the first one - to prevent others from being infected with ones germs. This poor chap in the photo above is being a good citizen and wants to keep his germs to himself - he wears the mask all day until he gets home. And for those who don't like masks - they choose something like the product below to plug up their nostrils.

I've only seen folks wearing masks in Japan - anybody wear surgical masks in your region out n about in public?