There was a certain Malaysian VIP who used to, in a light-hearted manner, advise reporters to not stand too close to him while he spoke.

Otherwise, he would tell them, be armed with a brolly. Rookie reporters who failed to heed his warning would learn quickly the folly of their ways.

But not many of us are aware that we spew a lot of the contents inside our mouth when we speak. Even fewer are game enough to admit it or make a crack of it. In that sense, kudos to the said VIP.

Researchers at none other than Princeton University came up with some interesting findings about … of all subject matters … spitting. But it was never more relevant at that time. The year was 2020 and the Covid-19 pandemic had already got a grip of the globe.

The researchers directly visualised how speaking produced and expelled droplets of saliva into the air.

These droplets could then be inhaled by others, making it a primary conduit for the spread of infection, such as Covid-19.

Hence the need for people who cook and serve food at your favourite eatery to keep their mouth shut or, better yet, well-covered up.

In the few seconds it takes the waiter to tell you “nine ringgit” for your plate of char koay teow, he would have passed on a fair amount of the contents in his mouth onto your lunch.

This underscores the importance of requiring food handlers to mask up, a point that several state authorities have finally come to realise. Selangor has already made it mandatory for them, particularly cooks and waiters at restaurants and stalls, to keep their mouth and nose well covered. Perlis is following suit.

Kudos to them, but in truth, the requirement should not have been a matter for discussion and debate in the first place.

Anyone who handles food should, by law, be required to mask up whether or not there is an outbreak of an infectious disease. Sadly, it had to take a pandemic to make us realise that.

But we Malaysians are quite indifferent about such matters. Even before we have won the war against Covid-19, the masks were already coming off.

Masking up became an option rather than a requirement when most Covid-19 restrictions were lifted last year. Even our friendly mee rebus hawker has sometimes forgotten to don that all-important face covering.

The stakes get higher when one is nursing a cough or a cold. A 2016 blog by the American Lung Association offers up some stomach-churning bits of wisdom.

The cough and the sneeze are the body’s way of getting rid of foreign substances that it does not agree with.

But in the process of expelling uninvited guests such as viruses or unwanted foreign matter such as dust, a cough or sneeze also pushes saliva and mucus out of the system.

Someone standing nearby or directly in front could end up inhaling the saliva and mucus.

According to the blog, a cough travels as fast as 50mph (80kph) while a sneeze does twice as fast. As a person coughs, he expels almost 3,000 droplets in just one go, while upwards to 10,000 droplets comes out of the nostril in just one sneeze.

Imagine all this getting into your plate of nasi lemak. Even if your waiter is in the pink of health, it can easily spoil your appetite.

We have to come to the realisation that masking up is not just to keep ourselves safe from infection, be it Covid-19 or other pathogens.

Whether or not we are waiting tables at the restaurant or just a patron waiting for our meal, masking up also keeps others safe.

It’s just basic human decency.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.