Another day at Zabar’s I saw, at the same moment, people greedily scooping up food samples and a worker walking past in a flu mask. It was just as jarring as considering how amenable New Yorkers are to communal tongs in the mesclun bins in the midst of an epidemic that has hit nearly all 50 states. Maybe it’s proof that lack of universal health care makes us tougher. We can compartmentalize our paranoia.