> Wu explains to the French doctor his theory that plague is pneumonic and airborne (...) And the French guy humiliates him . . . and in very racist terms says, ‘What can we expect from a Chinaman?’ And to prove this point, [the French doctor] goes and attends the sick in a plague hospital without wearing Wu’s mask, and he dies in two days with plague.

Maybe we're like this French doctor, and that this is still the reason why we don't wear masks in the west? A widespread practice in several East Asian countries - but what do they know?