Dubai coughing

I’ve noticed a rather odd thing since me and my wife landed in Dubai on our vacation trip. It seems that it’s quite normal for everyone to just cough out in the open air without even the slightest attempt to cough into the hand or elbow.

We’ve walked pasted many people in malls, out in open spaces etc where you could almost feel the breath of someone’s cough while they were walking past you. It’s happened many times. We’ve been here for a week now.

You might call us overly sensitive in terms of hygiene, but it still strikes me as odd, since it’s quite frowned upon not to do so in public spaces where we live in Copenhagen.

Are people less attentive to their surroundings or is the majority of people just simply unbothered by this behavior?