Just got shouted at in a coffee shop for coughing in public 🥴

[wildgreyocean]

I know I’m not being unreasonable here but I just need some reassurance! I was in a coffee shop after popping to the shops and got a tickle in my throat. I’ve had a cold all week but nothing too severe. I coughed and next thing I know an old man is shouting at me that I’m being selfish and should be self isolating at home, and “don’t I know the NHS is on its knees?!”

AIBU to think this is a total overreaction to a cough?!

The old man chose to go to a crowded cafe.

Do you have tiny arms or a massive head?

Could you get a bell?

Yep. Given the prevalence of asymptomatic transmission, it was a risky decision even if he thought he was going to protect himself by shouting at anyone who coughed. Never mind what he might be carrying and spraying all over them, of course!

If not getting ill over Christmas is important enough to berate random women who for all he knows is coughing because of a chronic condition, it's also important enough for him to forego an entirely optional visit to a cafe. But the latter would've meant him having to make the sacrifice.

And a neon sign. "Have lungs, may cough".

Ha ha, to be fair I thought of it in the same way as TamzinGrey. Completely daft I know.

Sounds selfish to me. When you’re sick with a contagious illness you should only be going out for necessities. I’m sure you have coffee at home.

OP is not sick.

I look after a man with lung cancer and he always gets looks when he coughs :(

According to some on this thread, he should stay at home so they are not worried about getting his non-existent flu.

she just posted that she’s ordered a covid test, so i think she’s given up that pretence.

You cough into the crook (the inside bend) of your elbow, not the pointy outside. It's a very common technique and easily do-able for most able-bodied people.

so frustrating how many adults send their kids to school/nursery while clearly sick

Our school repeatedly reminds the parents that a cough/ runny nose are no reason to leave your child at home.

He shouldn’t have shouted but it’s very offputting hearing someone with a nasty cough when you’re trying to enjoy a snack.

😆😆 she said she was. You can be critically sick and still go shopping. Gene Hackman’s wife, Betsy Arakawa was out coughing and shopping with the hanta virus only hours before she dropped dead.

My dh has alpha trypsin deficiency so always has a mucousy cough due to lung damage.
If this man spoke to him that way he would give him an earful.. People cough for all sorts of reasons mind your own business.
As a mother to a primary school age child if I stayed home every time I got sick I'd lose my job. 🙄

just in case. I highly doubt it is, and to be honest even if it is, what difference does it actually make?

Oh yeah, you’re so right. Public spaces are for the sick and diseased to just spread their germs around, they aren’t for healthy people at all.

Public spaces are not for aggressive men to shout at lone women.

Yeah that’s not based on science or caring about kids or staff health but on how attendance stats affect their performance assessments and league table rankings.

🤣 I recognise you, by the end of the thread the old man will be a convicted rapist Covid conspiracy theorist madman shouting death threats at a poor disabled lone woman who merely blew on her hot coffee to cool it down.

you love to resort to hyperbole while erasing all the context.

Public spaces are for the public.

But you're being far too trusting here, how do you know this man was healthy? He could've been carrying fuck knows what, and spraying it merrily over the lone woman he felt entitled to shout at, with no care at all for the NHS. You just prefer his form of selfishness, that's all.

OP coughed into her elbow in a cafe. A man shouted at her.
What is acceptable about that? It is not hyperbole at all.

I grew up with an aggressive man. A man shouting in a cafe at me would absolutely send me spiralling into a panic attack. Not hyperbole. My lived experience

OP did nothing wrong.

I guess it makes no difference if satisfying your Starbucks or Costa espresso addiction is worth risking the lives of other customers by sitting and drinking it in the cafe instead of doing a take away coffee. It’s selfish for those of us who actually give a shit about other people. Like those who have just beat cancer and are trying to get back to normalcy with compromised immune systems who rely on people being decent enough to limit exposing their illnesses in public spaces.

A sinus infection (sinusitis) itself isn't usually contagious

, but the viruses or bacteria that cause it often are, especially if it starts from a cold or flu. !!!!

Viral sinusitis spreads like a cold, so you're contagious, but bacterial sinusitis, which develops later, is less likely to spread.