Many will resume shaking hands, but many people will appreciate having a legitimate reason to keep their hands to themselves.
Coronavirus has offered precious few moments of comic relief. Most involved people catching themselves in the moment of committing to the handshake and executing an awkward 180. With politicians making up so much of the professional hand-shaking class, watching their bullet-proof confidence wobble made for good laughs, eminently shareable on social media.
That was before the reality of isolation sobered us up. Before the acceleration in infections and deaths took our breath away. Before we got our head around the fact that going into hospital means a significant chance of not coming out.
Even if there were somebody to greet, suppressing the urge to shake hands, high-five, or even kiss them is a matter of the utmost self-preservation. Dr Anthony Fauci, the key expert adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump recently joined the ranks of those who would like to relegate the handshake to history.
I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you. … Not only would it be good to prevent coronavirus disease — it probably would decrease instances of influenza dramatically in this country.
— Dr Anthony Fauci
Stop the spread
Shaking hands in greeting is an ancient tradition. That does not constitute a reason to retain it. Progress often requires discarding ancient traditions like reading entrails, child marriage, or human sacrifice.
The handshake goes back at least as far as ancient Athens in 5th Century BC. Crucially, this means it predates — by at least 1500 years — our understanding of how bacteria, parasites, fungi, and viruses transmit contagion. Some of this understanding can be detected in Islamic scholarship from the 11th Century onward.
