Consider the hygiene upside of Covid-19

Here, in the new coronavirus heartland of Europe, we have a joke: we used to cough in public to hide a fart, now we fart to hide a cough. Things have changed because of Covid-19 but you know what? Some of these things are for the better.

For instance, several years ago a woman on the street coughed into my face, her spit spraying my cheeks. Then she glared at me as if it was my fault for being there, for having a face, and kept moving.

I got bronchitis.

Now, nobody coughs in public. If they do, it’s into their elbow – the new Petri dish – or a tissue, looking apologetic while the crowds part like the Red Sea.

In addition, random spitting in the streets has disappeared and it’s about time, because hocking up lumps of phlegm, which are essentially your germs surrounded by immune cells and mucus, and expelling them in public is disgusting.

It was always men who did it.

Spit into a tissue, I used to want to scream, or swallow and let your amazing stomach juices take care of it, but don’t spew onto the shoes of your fellow humans.

No longer. Spitting is taboo.

And, at last, hand-washing has become a thing, frequent and thorough. This, as ever, is how to stop the spread of so much illness, both bacterial and viral.

Shops, once aggressive guardians of their bathrooms, are providing free hand-washing facilities.

If only everyone had washed their hands like this when the winter vomiting bug made its rounds, or the bog-standard flu, or the common cold, or whatever the contagious minor or major disease of the month was, or after a bout of diarrhoea.

In future, maybe they will.

We’re also giving each other space now, stepping back to let others go, our prescribed “social distancing” making us more mindful of the people around us– those people whom we once jostled and pushed without thought.

We no longer air-kiss or shake hands, but we smile in solidarity.

It’s as if Coronageddon has taught us, finally, that we are not islands in these cities. We are linked to one another virally and we need to be considerate, for the common good, for the health of our herd, for the sake of other people’s loved ones as much as our own.

But just don’t ever touch an elbow again…

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