All of New York is hacking. We sent Rachel Sklar on a mission to find out what can help—if anything.

I was at a long-awaited panel discussion at my friends’ private home, listening to Senator Kristen Gillibrand speak about paid leave and reproductive rights with women’s health entrepreneurs Priyanka Jain and Alessandra Henderson, when I first heard it: The Cough.

Henderson, the founder of a women’s health company called Elektra Health, coughed discreetly from the makeshift stage. Then she coughed again. It was dry and quick and frequent. Every so often, she would turn her head, raise her hands, and behind the swishy curtain of her chic blonde bob, cough. A woman stole over and slipped her a cough drop. Gillibrand had warmed up and was on a tear about TikTok. (Not a fan, by the way.) And still, discreetly but certainly not imperceptibly, coughing. Henderson did not otherwise seem sick. She was a power woman on a panel with a Senator, in peak form, but what can I say: these days, you notice the cough.

https://www.thecut.com/2024/01/how-to-treat-a-cough-that-lingers.html