I have noticed that many Americans love to make fun of Japanese people for wearing masks so often in public, viewing it as paranoia. However, the reality is that in Japan, it is incumbent on the sick person to wear the mask to avoid infecting others, so it is actually a very gracious and kind gesture. I really wish this obvious common-sense custom would catch on in the rest of the world. FA should automatically issue these masks to anyone who coughs more than a couple times on a flight. It is horribly wasteful and inefficient for 99 people to wear a mask 24/7 to protect themselves against the one person who is hopelessly oblivious to the world around them.

Flying with a cold is often unavoidable as we are almost all constrained by time and money, but people should at least have the decency to cover their mouth and keep a steady supply of cough drops to minimize the issue. Unfortunately, our culture is based on the principle of Me! Me! Me!, so any requirement for people to consider the well being of anyone else would be widely derided as communism and fascism.