I'm from Australia, and I know how to read government documents here. They very rarely lie, but you have to read them very precisely.
If you are well, you do not need to wear a surgical mask as there is little evidence supporting the widespread use of surgical masks in healthy people to prevent transmission in public.
They can say "little evidence" because only a few recent studies show that.
"A common claim is that surgical masks do not protect against respiratory viruses. This is not true. Several peer-reviewed studies in medical journals have found that correct and consistent use of surgical masks in household or community settings conferred a significant degree of protection against influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome and other respiratory virus infections, especially when combined with hand hygiene."
and
"Another misconception is that surgical masks should only be worn by symptomatic individuals. In fact, surgical masks are effective when worn by both respiratory virus-infected persons and their contacts. Furthermore, it is well recognised that even asymptomatic Covid-19 patients can still be infectious to others, rendering this recommendation inapplicable to the current pandemic.
Like other respiratory viruses, Sars-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19, is largely transmitted by droplets from infected persons. Therefore, the scientific evidence in favour of mask use against other respiratory viruses is generalisable to Covid-19."
and
"have no hesitation in recommending universal mask usage for people living in neighbourhoods with community Covid-19 transmission"
By Dr Siddharth Sridhar, clinical assistant professor, Department of Microbiology, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong
In this pragmatic, cluster randomized clinical trial involving 2862 health care personnel, there was no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory-confirmed influenza among health care personnel with the use of N95 respirators (8.2%) vs medical masks (7.2%).
https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/coronavirus...