Just completely, utterly wrong. Japan had a huge spike this winter. Korea is currently at all-time highs. Vietnam is currently near all-time highs. Thailand peaked at 20,000 cases per day, and is currently at 10,000.
These numbers are lower than the US in absolute terms, but claiming "essentially no Covid" means only that you aren't informed of the reality of the situation. Covid is running rampant across Asia, even now.
> There's evidence that even a small portion of people wearing them in public reduces the incidence of disease.
There is literally no evidence of this. The few RCTs that have performed suggest the opposite: you have to put masks on a huge number of people (hundreds to thousands) to prevent even a single case.
> And your takeaway is that it's mass hysteria to encourage an extraordinarily cheap NPI?
No, my takeaway is that there's very little evidence supporting the use of masks. Because there isn't. And most of what there is, is of exceptionally low quality.