Opinion-in-brief: Pandemic era etiquette for the common cold
So London has been hit by the plague. No, not Covid – how desperately 2020. It’s the monster common cold, which most of us have managed to dodge for the last 18 months thanks to social distancing. Now it’s back with a vengeance.
After aggressive messaging telling us to protect our loved ones by staying home when we’re sick, what are we supposed to do when we have the sniffles?
In the supermarket, buying chicken soup, I was hit with panic: what if I make someone sick?
Coughing outside of the house is firmly taboo. One friend suggests I get a badge declaring “it’s not Covid!”.
Gone are the days when we all sneezed over our office keyboard. But finding our way back to normal behaviour for short-term non-harmful illnesses is a maze of modern politeness I’m yet to master.