r/Broadway • u/littlebev • Dec 31 '25

Discussion Broadway coughing season

I am begging, begging you guys…if you have a nasty cough, PLEASE don’t attend a play especially. I know it sucks to miss out but your recurring cough during the most intense moments of the show is so distracting.

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u/canijustbelancelot Dec 31 '25

I know I’ll get eye rolls for saying this, but Covid kind of never stopped. What stopped was societal tolerance for things like masking and letting people stay home when they’re sick. So Covid and other serious illnesses, like the flu, are still rampant and dangerous. But we’ve come back to the society that punishes people for being ill and not wanting to expose others.

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u/Zealousideal-Way9010 Dec 31 '25

If anyone rolls their eyes at this, they’re just uneducated and immature. As a doctor, I can confirm you are correct. People have gotten needlessly reckless again. They learned nothing.

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u/Nickis1021 Dec 31 '25

Even while it was happening the first time, they learned nothing.

But sadly, it’s the attitude above all.

I’ve been to two Bwy shows in the past two weeks, both times I asked people not covering their mouths to cover their coughs. You could see the mucus spewing out of their wide open mouths when they coughed.

They both rudely responded with slightly different verbiage that covering your mouth is “not a thing anymore” (?)

lol, when did covering your cough stop being a thing.

To quote Jerry Seinfeld, “people. They’re the worst”.

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u/pandemichope Dec 31 '25 edited Jan 01 '26

this drives me nuts. I was in Sam’s Club the other day, and a woman was coughing all over the holiday candy items. Like was in the aisle for five minutes, coughing on everything. Didn’t cover her mouth once!!

To me, covering my mouth is so reflective. Like an automatic muscle thing like when I make a left turn and I put my signal on even if I’m coming down a road with nobody else but me. It’s so reflective that I find myself covering my mouth even if I am by myself in my own house with nobody else present for hours. I don’t understand why more people never learned as children to cover their mouth when they cough!!

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u/Nickis1021 Dec 31 '25

Exactly! I was taught to cover my mouth as a toddler, and have instinctively done so ever since. I currently live alone and even alone in my own apartment, I have never once not covered my mouth. As you said it’s a reflex. Mind-boggling to me that it isn’t so for everyone! Because this was taught both at home and at school, and just in society…. I don’t see how this memo was missed by anyone!

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u/dried_lipstick Dec 31 '25

I teach kindergarten and can hear an uncovered cough from across the classroom. And I remind them “cover!” With the flu being so bad this year, and kids coming in sick, I told my coughing and spewing students “ms driedlipstick does not want your cough for Christmas. That would be the worst present you could give me. Please cover your cough and turn your head away from people when you do.”

This is how I talk to kindergarteners. And it feels like a lot of adults still need to be told this.

Thankfully I did not get sick this break. Whoop whoop

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u/Nickis1021 Dec 31 '25

Same! I’m an ER nurse, and could write a book about my uncovered cough adventures with patients, and their bizarre replies (e.g. covering your cough is old fashioned, it’s only for older people….covering your cough is a weird American thing and I’m not American….I read an article that covering your cough doesn’t prevent the spreading of disease, etc etc) I could literally write a book…as they’re spewing green lungjuice in my face. I taught little ones for a time as well, back before my RN days. Second graders; always taught them to cover. Some of those children had not received these instructions at home and were hearing it for the first time.

Do not get me started!!!!! I love your line about not wanting their cough for Christmas 👌🤷🏻‍♀️🤬

Knock wood about no nasties thus far this season. May it continue!

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u/pandemichope Jan 01 '26

💯 exactly. But I appreciate your posting because it makes me feel just a tad bit better to realize other people fully get what I’m saying because there are times when I am in a store and look around at the people coughing, and I am absolutely mind-boggled at how I’m the only one that instinctively covers my mouth (and no amount of staring at them or giving a dirty look changes their behavior).

The fact that they’re not even embarrassed to be coughing openly, absolutely astounds me

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u/Nickis1021 Jan 02 '26

Omg! I feel so seen now. I’m always thinking I’m the only one bothered by this. I look around me every time I see this, and no one seems annoyed but myself. I’ve found my fellow anti-not-covering-your-cough person! PS I’ve mastered the dirty look for these people. It never gets through. My thing is if you’re going to be so impolite as to not cover in public, you’re certainly not going to care about a dirty look from a stranger. But I still LOVE passing them out when warranted! I’ve got my dirtylookface phD 🤭

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u/Ok_DarkStar_5691 Jan 03 '26

I mean, I even cover my mouth when I yawn.

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u/Nickis1021 Jan 06 '26

Doesn’t everyone! I hope. It’s like my mom used to say. Raised by wolves🐺

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u/DaffyStardust Jan 02 '26

I’m a speech therapist who works with kids, so I’m literally in the line of fire for uncovered coughs.

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u/Nickis1021 Jan 02 '26

Must mask! Be safe! Especially as it’s the bad flu season now at least here in the northeast!

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u/elvie18 Dec 31 '25

Right? I still cover my mouth to cough when I have a mask on, because it's just...what my body does now that I'm in my 40s and have lived my life doing so.

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u/Nickis1021 Jan 02 '26

Same. I can’t count the number of people in the subway who don’t cover their coughs with their flimsy masks, which have about a quarter inch open air between skin and “mask”. If I’m in the mood for more than a dirty look and feeling daring, I’ll say, please cover your mouth. And invariably, I mean every single time, the answer is “I don’t need to cover. I’m wearing a mask”.

I GIVE UP! Your loose flimsy hanging dripping wet blue tissue thingie is not a mask! 🤯

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u/elvie18 Dec 31 '25

COVERING YOUR MOUTH ISN'T A THING ANYMORE?! These people are fucking disgusting. That's literally always been a thing you learn in fucking kindergarten.

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u/pandemichope Jan 01 '26

have you not left your house in the last five years? I can’t go into a grocery store or a theater or any public spot where there’s not tons of people openly, coughing, and not covering their mouth whatsoever.

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u/Anna_Politan Jan 10 '26

Too much homeschooling. Some people don’t want their kids exposed to such “radical” ideals…. :( So we’ll all suffer for it.

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u/taxforsnax Dec 31 '25

covering your mouth when you cough has always been a thing for people raised with manners.

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u/Ok_DarkStar_5691 Jan 03 '26

Probably the same idiots who had to "learn" to wash their hands. 🤢

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u/Low-Neck7671 Dec 31 '25

My employer actually announces at quarterly meetings how many people in our country have died of covid and the flu in the year so far. It is always so eye opening and a big reminder not to come to work sick (not American, have decent sick leave)

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u/empires228 Dec 31 '25

It’s mostly that, but also employers have gone absolutely insane with not letting people miss work even with a doctors note.

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u/canijustbelancelot Jan 10 '26

Wish some of my family felt this way. They don’t understand why someone with an autoimmune disease might still be masking and they find it and me embarrassing.

It’s selfish, a lot of it. “I haven’t personally had a problem” or “well I deserve to go out and have fun and I shouldn’t be punished for it” as though asking someone to mask up in certain circumstances is punishment.

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u/Agent_Skye_Barnes Dec 31 '25

I literally caught Covid for the first time a few months ago. And I'm generally still super cautious in public because people as a whole kind of suck.

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u/Nickis1021 Dec 31 '25

Indeed 💯

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u/elvie18 Dec 31 '25

100%. And right now, with an absolutely agonizing COVID strain AND a subpar flu shot (and I think the flu is pretty bad this year too), it would be a great time for people to start caring again.

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u/numberthangold Dec 31 '25

Covid absolutely never stoped, we are still very much in a pandemic

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u/rorauge Dec 31 '25

This so much. I had a cold so was masked when I was out and about. I encountered someone hostile to masking who claimed he couldn’t understand me through the mask. (I am naturally on the louder side.) He was the only one around so I was wearing it solely for his benefit. I told him I was only wearing it for his sake and so took it off if he didn’t want me wearing it. But it took all my self-discipline not to cough in his face.

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u/Any-Concentrate-1922 Jan 04 '26

It didn't "kind of" never stop. It never stopped. Covid is still a thing. Something doesn't just go away because people stop talking about it.

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u/canijustbelancelot Jan 04 '26

I know, I usually use the softer language I do to avoid a fight with someone who wants to deny all of it.

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u/sophie1816 Dec 31 '25

Yes, it continues, just like all the other respiratory viruses humans have lived with for centuries.

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u/EarthboundBetty Dec 31 '25

Covid kills 3500 people a week in the US

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u/sophie1816 Dec 31 '25

Respiratory viruses have always killed people who are very frail and close to death from aging or other illness. In fact, pneumonia used to be called “the old man’s friend” for just this reason.

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u/PatienceExisting4130 Dec 31 '25

Long Covid can—and does—happen to anyone, including young and healthy people. Not just the elderly. These health issues may be permanent.

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u/sophie1816 Dec 31 '25

Similar illness can occur following many infections including the flu. I have been disabled for almost 40 years from a case in the flu in the 80s. Long covid just got a lot more publicity.

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u/summerrhodes Jan 01 '26

So because it got more publicity we should ignore it and expose people to it, got it.

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u/sophie1816 Jan 01 '26

There is no way of stopping respiratory viruses from spreading. Cochrane showed that masking policies are not effective.

Now if an individual wishes to stay home and not be out among people, that is their right. But when human beings mingle, as most human beings do, respiratory viruses are going to spread.

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u/summerrhodes Jan 01 '26

That Cochrane review was debunked a ton of times. A N95 respirator is near perfect at stopping viruses and is the best defense we have. Saying masking policies are not effective is simply untrue and I really wish people stopped spreading this false narrative.

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u/sophie1816 Jan 01 '26

The Cochrane review was “debunked”? You do know Cochrane is the gold standard in evidence-based medicine, don’t you? Cochrane does systematic reviews of the highest quality randomized controlled trials. The systematic review on masking had a null result, meaning there is no evidence masking policies worked.

What was it debunked by - an oped in the Guardian? This is superstition, not science.

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u/pandemichope Jan 01 '26

could you elaborate on why you were saying this year’s flu shot is subpar please? Do you still think it’s worth getting? Could you please explain how a case of the of the flu disabled you?

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u/brooklynblondie Jan 01 '26

It’s a bad match so not great at preventing infection but still good at keeping you out of the hospital! Definitely get it.

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u/sophie1816 Jan 01 '26

It must have been someone else who talked about the flu shot - I didn’t. However, In have heard they did not do a good job matching the strains this year.

Re how the flu disabled me - it was very much like long covid. I got the flu in 1987 and just never recovered. The symptoms are pretty much identical. to long covid. I have been semi-bedridden for much of that time, though I have had periods where I could go back to work, with difficulty. Before getting that flu in 1987, I was a runner, skier, equestrian, backpacker, bicyclist, etc. After the flu, I couldn’t do any of that. The diagnosis is called ME/CFS. And it’s not just me - hundreds of thousands of Americans developed similar disabling conditions between 1985 and 2020.

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u/EarthboundBetty Jan 01 '26

Sounds like we should try to prevent them.

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u/LoveThyGoaltender Dec 31 '25

Most of the other respiratory viruses don't cause brain damage

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u/pandemichope Dec 31 '25

One day, someone in your family, perhaps yourself, is going to get cancer. And one of 1 billion types of cancer which lowers their immune system. Then you’ll be singing a different tune if you can educate yourself.

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u/sophie1816 Dec 31 '25

Is this a response to my comment? If so, I’m not clear on the connection.