19 hours ago, scottiejohn said:

If you believe that Thais do not wear masks during the SMOG season then you must never have visited Chiang Mai or the North in the last twenty years or so!

I have lived in the north for quite a while (dividing time between the north and a little outside of Bangkok)...masks were simply not seen much BEFORE Covid, that is a fact.

It was Covid that changed everything...hence why mask wearing was very common in Chiang Mai during the "great haze of 2023" when much of Thailand was blanketed in thick haze until well into May, including and especially Chiang Mai, Mae Sai and other parts of the north. However, wind back to 2018 or 2019 and it was totally different...very few masks seen. That being said, 2023 was probably the worst year in history in terms of smoke haze, although Pai and some other areas have just experienced record breaking PM2.5 figures now.

1 hour ago, highrider said:

I have lived in the north for quite a while (dividing time between the north and a little outside of Bangkok)...masks were simply not seen much BEFORE Covid, that is a fact.

You must have been wearing blinkers if you could not "see" the masks being worn in and around Chiang Mai long before Covid!

21 hours ago, scottiejohn said:

If you believe that Thais do not wear masks during the SMOG season then you must never have visited Chiang Mai or the North in the last twenty years or so!

It has been going on long enough for this; "Thai government has introduced a regulation in nine provinces over Northern region of Thailand called “zero-burning” policy in 2013"

(Unveiling the origins of Northern Thailand’s haze: comprehensive chemical characterization and source apportionment of PM2.5 using targeted molecular markers - ScienceDirect)

I have lived in CM for nearly 30 years and my wife, myself, friends and many others were wearing mask some days during the burning seasons before then!

On 3/31/2026 at 12:37 PM, scottiejohn said:

You must have been wearing blinkers if you could not "see" the masks being worn in and around Chiang Mai long before Covid!

Very few masks worn before Covid. I didn't say none, I said very few. Big difference to the post-Covid period. Neither in Chiang Mai nor in Bangkok or anywhere else in Thailand would you see 15 or 20% of people wearing masks indoors or outdoors, regardless of the air quality.

Maybe 1 or 2% wore masks in Chiang Mai back in the day when air quality was bad.

On 3/31/2026 at 12:53 PM, scottiejohn said:

It has been going on long enough for this; "Thai government has introduced a regulation in nine provinces over Northern region of Thailand called “zero-burning” policy in 2013"

(Unveiling the origins of Northern Thailand’s haze: comprehensive chemical characterization and source apportionment of PM2.5 using targeted molecular markers - ScienceDirect)

I have lived in CM for nearly 30 years and my wife, myself, friends and many others were wearing mask some days during the burning seasons before then!

Sure, but back in the day, you and your friends represented a tiny minority of people living in Thailand who wore masks.

Nowadays, Thais (and some westerners) quickly put on their masks when there's high levels of dust pollution, something that few people in Thailand or most other countries did before 2020. During Songkran, I visited a nice little cafe I often go to up north, in the northern part of Lampang province, about an hour from Lampang or 90 minutes drive from Chiang Mai. It's run by an Italian priest. He was wearing his mask (on that day and the days before and since, average AQI has been around 180+). Other staff members were not...but plenty of other folk out and about in the area who were not splashing water, were wearing masks (of course at that time of day, it was still a bit early to be splashing water as festivities usually start later in the afternoon).

Back in 2019, I bet that only a fraction of those locals would have worn masks, on days with the same levels of high PM2.5.