STUDY: How to Cough Without Spreading COVID-19

If you’re like a lot of people, every time you sneeze or get a runny nose, your first thought is you have it. You’ve been infected with the COVID-19 virus.

Maybe you run off and get a test or try to find a hard to find at-home test. And it turns out you that don’t have COVID. But you could have another virus, the flu virus or an old-fashioned cold virus.

A new study recommends something we all can do to help avoid getting COVID or any of these kinds of bugs with cold-like symptoms.

The researchers who did this study say the best way to keep virus particles from spreading indoors this winter is to point your head down when you feel the need to cough. They say COVID-19 droplets and those from flu and colds spread in enclosed spaces with some studies showing that coughs and sneezes spread viral aerosols up to six feet away and possibly even farther.

So when indoors, in addition to masking up, and avoiding contact, we can add coughing toward the floor to your list. If you do, it will help keep others from getting sick from you and you getting sick from others.

But doctors continue to remind us the best way to avoid getting more than a mild case of COVID is to get vaccinated and boosted.

(Photo Getty Images)