I wouldn't consider my mother to be elderly as such. She's 66. She's in good shape.
She has a habit of coughing openly around the home. She's not a smoker thank goodness and it's not a smokers cough. I'm not in the UK and the virus is suppressed where I am. Chances would be slim if its a viral cough. She's coughs regularly around the home.. I think it's more dust related cough and clearing her throat.
She's been watching all the virus doom and gloom since February and March. Sometimes even panicking in the kitchen chair at the news. I remember one incident there was a man on the news. He recorded a video from his hospital bed struggling to breath. It was on the news. I have 1 brother living at home and my mother panicked and said he had to watch this. He has to know about this. I stopped her and said, sure what can he do about that man in hospital? He's following the guidelines and staying at home and there's not a lot more he can do. It was real panic from her.
I was chatting to my brother on the phone to Australia telling him about the panic from her. Thankfully on the next phone call home from him, he said that he limits watching TV and the news about the virus and he's better off turning off the TV. My mother started doing this then.
Anyways my mother is failing to understand that there's a window for the virus when people contract it and it takes some days to show symptoms. She's failing to understand that bit and she coughs openly about the home without a care in the world if she's spreading her germs to me and my brother.
Then last night, I saw her sanitising a lot of the kitchen surfaces, even inside the dishwasher, I swear to god, she wiped down the inside doow of the dishwasher before wiping down the washing machine door.
She definitely wasn't trying to clean the kitchen of the germs she likes to cough about the place. She was probably doing it thinking I'm diseased and leaving disease all over the kitchen. Like I go to work and sometimes work 12 hours a day. There are so many times when I don't get a chance to use the washing machine.
One day she coughed into the fridge. Another day I was eating breakfast and she came over to the side of the table and coughed over my breakfast.
She does the same with sneezes. She refuses to cover her sneezes.