That’s fine. It doesn’t have to be measles. Monkeypox is also doing rounds in the news and there are plenty of other serious diseases that have bumps, blisters, spots and the like to be concerned about. Also consider that the restaurant likely did not have similarly bright lighting to reveal the details of a disease in a photograph, nor would most concerned have gotten as close as the camera did. The point is there is no reason to consider a condition not contagious until informed otherwise and people are forgetting to set aside the omniscience a news article provides. Equating this with coughing helps convey this overwhelmingly complex concept to the many many people that apparently need the simplification.

Ya’ll want to take this clearcut case of simpleminded revulsion and apply it universally to everyone involved without proof. One of the patrons could very well have simply asked ‘is he contagious?’ and the waiter, like many out there apparently (even, say, a journalist trying to sensationalize the article), simplified the ask to a lowest common denominator. Even if the article does show clearcut revulsion from all the patrons involved, you cannot generalize that behaviour to everyone, and even the poor victim gets this which is why he, at least, is so understanding.