The veil

On topic of how Teh Orient has handled this, here is one of many, many articles by people not following the WHO's "white" lies on why we should each mask our nose and mouth. It's the large droplets - coming out of the sick, and coming in from the sick.

We don't have the hard historical documentation from the East as we have in the West. That is because the East only had one country in it - China - until the early Middle Ages. China itself did encompass a few smaller nations, once; but when China became China, under the Chin régime, it burned all the other kingdoms' records.

What does survive in the East is Eastern cultures, passed down in unwritten rules and taboos. And they involve little physical contact and much formal ceremony. I can't remember where I read it, but I read somewhere that this may reflect, exactly, prior experience with disease. The plagues were forgotten but the habits to contain them were remembered. UPDATE 7/21: South India especially.

I wonder if early Rome's famous sense of "decorum" is of similar origin.

Also: the Near Eastern veil, which (if Larry Gonick is right) started in Iraq under the Babylonians. This veil was for women - who, pre-Internet, can be counted on to cluster with other women in a society. The North African "Berbers" also had a veil, here for men. These also lived in huddled, dense towns (albeit semiliterate).