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Comment by tcfunk | Hacker News Reader

Expecting that people should control their sneezes is a ridiculous cultural norm.

Expecting sick people to not fill a room with hundreds of millions of aerosolized particles when that could be clearly avoided is a result of simple respect for those around you and evidence of manners and good breeding.

Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings.

Be that as it may, federal law does not require sick leave [0], so expecting people to act against their own interests is not the clear solution.

The dilemma between

- your livelihood & potential (costly) treatment

- absence without sick pay

goes beyond kindergarten-level because kindergarteners really don't have much to lose.

Staying at home when you are sick, from the employer's perspective, should be vastly preferable. Even if the employer were totally heartless about people's health and only cared about money, it's a risk avoidance strategy that pays for itself many times over by reducing the chance the business collapses. They lose a negligible amount of productivity to reduce the risk they lose a significant amount of productivity. And yet, there are many employers who will hold you in contempt for asking they institute sick leave -- even if it's the only reasonable way to deal with the reality that people transfer sickness but also need to eat.

Sick people act rationally when looking out for their own livelihood's continued existence. I agree it's definitely good to hope to gain recognition for your displays of respect towards your employer/coworkers. But if your employer/coworkers do not respect that you have jeopardized your livelihood for their benefit, the continued and self-inflicted cost is pretty much a total refutation of "good breeding", cultural learnings, or understanding what manners are for.

And then, beyond the 1st-order consequences, there are 2nd-order (immunity/interpersonal/office politics) consequences of the decision to prevent people from coming into contact with all pathogens, if the primary aim is only to reduce the risk of extremely harmful pathogens (but those aren't particularly relevant to the discussion of individual decision-making).

[0] https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/sickleave

Arguably it is kindergarten where a lot of Americans learn the wrong lessons. Kindergartens for most of us were the first open plan offices with terrible inhumane absence policies that most of us experienced.

Current childcare policies are causing public health problems by keeping children away when not needed, or requiring courses of not needed antibiotics before the child is allowed back.

> Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings.

A friend/colleague of mine is suffering from Chronic sinusitis and she usually sneezes every morning for around 20-30 times (random number, I know!) over period of few hours. The 'sneezing fit' is 100% of the time non-contagious yet loud and 'full with watery substance', She covers her sneezing most of the time however it is not always possible to react in time.

Also, she's a single working mother raising two well mannered and cute children. Would you expect her to always stay home when she's always 'sick'?

These kindergarten-level cultural learnings you are talking about are societal pressure, we inhale pollutants, pollens and smoke from cigarettes all the time!

Be realistic. We're talking about the 99.9% of other people who don't have that condition.

Where do you get your numbers from? Allergies are a pretty common thing. And the symptoms mimic a cold. Numbers seem to differ, but I'm getting anything from 10% to 30% of adults. [1] I'm pretty sure that makes your numbers bad.

And want folks to stay home? How the heck are they supposed to afford it when they can be contagious for 2 weeks? Heck, folks are contagious before their symptoms even start. How can one allow for that? [2] Most jobs aren't going to allow for that sort of time off, nor are schools. Most that do will require a doctor's note - and it hardly seems reasonable to go to a doctor for a simple cold virus.

[1] http://www.aaaai.org/about-aaaai/newsroom/allergy-statistics [2] https://www.healthline.com/health/cold-flu/contagious#overvi...

The point is not all sneezes are due to colds. There are other causes that account for much more than .1%. Don't reinfoce societal pressure with biased probability analysis.

>Don't reinfoce societal pressure with biased probability analysis.

They aren't saying don't sneeze, they're saying cover your sneeze. It doesn't matter why you are sneezing, covering it is the standard.

Agreed, but I think what is ridiculous is training your lungs to minimize the effectiveness of your sneeze. That is absolutely ridiculous: your body is sneezing for a reason, let it do its thing (and cover it).

I think his tips were meant as an option. To be quite honest I'll be trying some of these, because it's not a huge amount of effort at all.

The CDC says 12.1% of the adult US population has sinusitis[1].

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/sinuses.htm

So what? Transpeople are rather low as a percentage of the population, yet we extend or argue to extend massive courtesies to them. If you are going to make a policy, expect to include a small population.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/01/health/transgender-popula...

There are a lot of definitions of "trans" going about these days. Just search on Youtube of Reddit. Many of them are in my opinion attention seekers (not saying that genuine transgenderism doesn't exist, but a lot of people are making some very silly sounding claims lacking any scientific backing).

I agree. There is also anecdotal evidence that within the trans community (MtF) that take hormones, the commuity is split into people wanting to trans-ition and to as a third way that spans the genders. My point in the original post is that we have policies for such a small group of people, that the OP should look into sneezing policies to take into account small groups.

Here's a policy: Regardless of what's in your underpants -- don't sneeze in the air, don't cough on people and keep thy cooties to thyself. Pretty simple really.

Not everything is about sexual identity. This SJW nonsense has gone over the top. Please don't try to convince me we need a non-binary-trans-sneeze policy because of white cis privilege because you'd be wasting your time. If so, we have reached cultural peak absurdity.

Nope, not convincing you that you need a non-binary sneeze policy. I'm using that as an example of having policies that make sense when dealing with a minor population. The original example was people with sinititius and being able to comply with the policy. Also, another goal was to make people think do we even need such a draconian sneeze policy to begin with? What about the science that says that the more things you are exposed to the more resilient your system?

way more people that that have allergies

That's unfortunate. I used to suffer from occasional random sneezing until I got far enough down the list of suggested hayfever treatments to find one that worked (avamys). There are a lot of different causes of this kind of thing and some are very easily treated and some aren't.

this used to be me. constantly sick with sinus infection (like out of action for ~10 days every 2 months). I started dating someone who ate a vegan diet, and after adopting that diet I've been sick twice in 4 years and both times were very light and ran for only 2-3 days.

I have no idea why it had that effect for me, and everyone is different, but if she's suffering enough that she's at the point where she'll try anything you might pass along my anecdote. I wish I had chanced into it earlier.

As someone else mentioned, sick leave is not guaranteed. There are millions of people who have jobs where if you call in sick, you are risking your job.

For years, my dad had 4 days off a year. That was both vacation and sick time. Any other time missed was time he wasn't getting paid for.

People who read HN probably don't know what that's like for the most part, especially if you offer opinions like yours. You might have learned that in kindergarten but sometimes you gotta eat, too. Especially when others are depending on you.

Im not telling people not to cover their mouth. That's a reasonable expectation. I'm saying don't expect people to hold in sneezes.

Screw that, I would prefer to take the risk of a cold than have to make up the work for lazy bastards who take a day of for a bit of a runny nose. There is a good chance I am going to get it anywhere else I go anyway (shops, public transport, anywhere public basically).

Genuine sickness yes, but a bit of a cold where half of the office can manage to soldier on? I reckon I ought to get some sort of bonus for the fact I stay in shape, eat well and haven't had a sick day in a few years.

Some people can't even avoid it because of their work, doctors receptionists for example.

>Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough. Stay home when sick. These are kindergarten-level cultural learnings.

Yes, fine, but none of these involve suppressing a sneeze. The goalpost has shifted.

> Cover your sneeze. Cover your cough.

Face masks FTW! Then you can creep out anybody.

When I see people in airports with those on, I make a point of coughing as loudly as possible when up close to them

Really? It seems like pretty much the most justified cultural norm I can imagine. Stopping/slowing the spread of disease is one of the only good reasons to even have cultural norms.

And what about saying "bless you?" People sure have superstitious hangups about sneezing. And I don't mind, it doesn't hurt anything, until I get a sarcastic "you're welcome" from people for not thanking them for blessing me. I seriously don't get that. When did saying "bless you" require an official display of gratitude? I didn't ask for anything and would just like to sneeze in peace, please.

I've never personally seen it as something religious, just being nice and in my country it's considered being well-mannered. That being said in my country we don't say "bless you", a literal translation to what we say would be "health".

When I visit other countries it feels weird that nobody says anything when people sneeze. But I realize that's a cultural thing and try to avoid saying "Bless you".

Thank the sneezer instead. If they wonder why you thanked them you can thank them for the aerosol of bacteria and crud they sent your way.

In east Asia it's customary for sick people to wear masks to avoid spreading disease via coughing or sneezing. A practice that ought to be adopted everywhere.

I know I'm promoting a passive-aggressive strategy which is also social corrosive, but it's a way of spreading (!) the meme. And don't say "Gesundheit" because you think "bless you" is religious -- saying Gesundheit is simply non-denominationally superstitious.

"In east Asia it's customary for sick people to wear masks to avoid spreading disease via coughing or sneezing. A practice that ought to be adopted everywhere."

Toughen up people!

We don't eat food off the floor because it would probably give us a bad stomach. Eating "hygienically" is a practice that we have adopted.

Dogs eat stuff off the floor all the time. Have they evolved a more advanced immune system than ours? Or just kept it well trained?

Dogs adopt the strategy of "eat first, ask questions later" (as pack animals that eat garbage, carrion etc). So they are quick to vomit up something that causes trouble. Also they are more likely than humans to eat stuff that will kill them.

As for their immune system, inbreeding of dogs has caused all sorts of susceptibilities, though overall humans are a better vector for disease (density, widespread distribution, gregariousness, etc). Also humans worry about disease symptoms that dogs and other animals stoically ignore and thus the disease can go unnoticed by the human. (e.g. a bit of diarrhoea dribbling uncontrollably out your backside will probably concern you but a dog will just put up with it -- though an owner will likely object!) .

"Gesundheit" means "health". Sneezing is an indicator of health risk.

It's a tradition, not a superstition.

I think you are too comfortable casually dismissing a cultural behavior that has existed across different forms for millenia. Perhaps there are interpersonal, cultural, body-language, psychological, and other ways that this behavior is important to us, and your certainty at its unimportance seems out-of-proportion to its continued prevalence and an over-estimation of the quality of the possible completeness of your analysis.

>And what about saying "bless you?"

correct answer to that is "not in your lifetime" (from the joke about a very old very rich grandpa who sneezes and his relatives :)

I frequently sneeze with so much force that I pop a little vein in my eyes. I even bruised a rib sneezing once. Anything that can help mitigate this is great in my book.

I disagree, vehemently in fact. It's not a hard thing to do.

What culture are you thinking of?

Is this sarcasm?

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