Don’t Worry, It’s Not COVID
The maskless man a few rows back was coughing his head off. I had just boarded the train from D.C. to New York City a couple of weeks ago and, along with several other passengers, was craning my neck to get a look at what was going on. This was not the reedy dregs of some lingering cold. This was a deep, constant, full-bodied cough. Think garbage disposal with a fork caught inside.
No one said anything to the man (at least to my knowledge). If someone had, though, I imagine that he might have replied with a now-familiar pandemic-times refrain: “Don’t worry! It’s not COVID!” Such assurances can be perfectly fine (polite, even), say, at the height of , when you want worried-looking company to know that you are not, in fact, showering them with deadly virus., a negative COVID test, especially in the early days of symptomatic illness, is no guarantee that you’re not infected and contagious. And even setting that concern aside, : Whatever it was that had that maskless man hacking away like a malfunctioning kitchen appliance, I didn’t want that either!
