Got a cough coming on? Don’t soldier on. For heaven’s sake, march homewards

The full-body cough is back. You may remember them from pre-COVID days, when people with bad coughs or a cold often felt free to move at large without embarrassment or mask.

At a writers’ festival a few weeks ago, the front rows of a session with two of my favourite authors appeared to move in sync with the heaving of someone who seemed to be sitting right behind me.

Feeling crook? Go to bed, not to work.Credit: iStock

The cough started like a tickle, a warning, a little breeze and a wheeze. A choking attempt to stop it from coming. Soon it was a heaving, barking sound, not unfamiliar to anyone who has the kind of cough that should keep you at home, or has lived with someone with whooping cough.

Each cough was exhausting to endure. It was so strong that I feared a flood of phlegm, vomit or blood would soon be projected over my back.

It seemed for a while we all rocked forward. And back. With each cough. Not just to better hear the speakers but to escape the cougher.

Day/Night CodralCredit: Matt Golding

After a while, he or she, I never dared to turn to see, stopped and the rustling began. A sip of water. A snort. A scuffle to find a tissue. A blow. Some crackling of paper for a lozenge. Maybe a Butter Menthol. It is a quieter lozenge. Perhaps it was a noisy Strepsil in a foil bubble.

More stifling. Then we would start again. Another full heave, where the spray felt like – some paranoia here – it sailed over us like we were boats heading out the harbour on a choppy windy day.

Then on the train last night, the same thing happened. Not even an arm stretching over this man’s face to stop the flow. His mouth wide open like a Munch scream. Though it wasn’t him screaming. It was us. The passengers.

As someone who had whooping cough as a child, and whose colds often turn to bronchitis and barks, I felt for him. I can’t hear coughing in the house without calling, “You poor thing darling.” (Inside, I am saying, “Go cough somewhere else”.)

When did we revert to the old days of no masks, slightly soggy handshakes and taking our germs to work with us?

My son studying in Washington DC – ill recently with a bad cough – tells me that in the Trumpian era, wearing masks is seen as very suss.

Research just published in the US found compliance with wearing a face mask is associated with other protective behaviours, such as avoiding public places and believing that wearing a mask helps to keep oneself and others safe from COVID. There was more support among those who didn’t see mask-wearing as a political statement. Why did we change?

I loved the surgical mask when I had a sniffle. Only six months ago, it was still something you’d see being worn on public transport, and everyone had one in their bag just in case.

I love that my boss still urges anyone who sniffles or coughs to retire home to work. She’s the one who wears a mask on every trip on public transport.

She was appalled to see the 1985 ad by Codral urging people who are sick to “Soldier On” on a local billboard.

Don’t soldier on. March homewards, please.

MediaWeek reported the slogan was back, though it had been replaced during COVID by “Get Back To What Matters Most”.

NSW Health’s respiratory surveillance for the last week in May warned COVID-19 cases in hospitals were increasing, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases were up, along with admissions for bronchiolitis among young children, particularly infants.

On a work trip last month, where I was meeting at least four groups of new people a day, my hand was ground to a pulp. I wanted to suggest a simple wave. A kind pat on the upper arm. Even an affected hand on the heart or a little bow from the waist. Elbow bump anyone? Shaking hands has lost its gloss for me. And like the five-day return to the office, it won’t bounce back.

Julie Power is a senior reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.

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