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The major component missing here is why the US washes eggs, which is that they don't vaccinate against salmonella. The places you're observing that store eggs outside a fridge probably all have some kind of poultry vaccination program, for example, the red lion on UK eggs: https://www.egginfo.co.uk/british-lion-eggs

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Here's the answer from the USDA themselves: https://tellus.ars.usda.gov/stories/articles/how-we-store-ou...

The USDA claims the only countries that wash/refrigerate their eggs are the US, Canada, Japan, and Scandiland. The whole argument against washing the eggs is to protect against bacteria, salmonella among them. The thing they focus on primarily for the reason we still wash/refrigerate them is freshness. They carried out a study and found washed/refrigerated eggs were fresher after 15 weeks than those stored using other methods.

I think the lack of refrigeration is mostly a convenience for supermarkets and transport, at least in the UK. I don't think I've ever encountered a household that didn't refrigerate their eggs after purchase, but they're almost always on regular shelves at sale.

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