That operation is supposed to take a week, so either Episode 6 zips through the rest of it in order to show us this as the aftermath, or that’s actually Meek Howard dodging Ian’s questions up there.
But because this is Counterpart, what appears to be a straightforward argument might be anything but.
After all, as far as viewers are aware, Howard Prime is currently on Earth-1 (to borrow from the Arrow-verse), while Meek Howard is getting his mind warped by everything on the germ-fearing Earth Prime.
J.K. Simmons does a phenomenal job of differentiating his performances, and the scene above looks more like a mixture of the two roles, as if Meek Howard is trying out a more confident approach, which he hasn’t done much of yet.