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The pandemic changed everything, including social norms around how to behave when you're sick (or just afraid you might be sick ). Some long-held courtesies still apply — sneeze into your elbow; don't show up to a birthday party when you're clearly contagious — but after several years of rapid testing, mask wearing, and stop-the-spreading, there are some new rules of conduct too. In 2025, people have opinions — strong ones — about proper sickness etiquette. To help you parse this updated landscape, we attempted to spell out what's considered polite or rude in regards to illness.

To come up with these points of decorum, we asked coworkers to weigh in on real-life scenarios. We couldn't address every possible situation you might encounter, but we attempted to give guida

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