Is coronavirus the end of the handshake?

“Please refrain from hand shaking,” read a sign at an event in London I recently attended. Despite increasing anxiety about coronavirus, for many of us, it was the first time we had encountered such a request. Underneath the words was a small image of two disembodied hands shaking, surrounded by a red circle struck through with a diagonal line.

Refraining from such a common behaviour was easier said than done. Handshaking comes automatically to many of us. The art of a proper handshake was drummed into me at a young age when growing up in the United States. When I was around ten years old, my father would rehearse my handshake with me: “Make eye contact first. You don’t want to shake hands like a dead fish.” So I gripped his hand as firmly as I could, my little wrist and fingers straining with pressure, my eyes locked on his.

Since then, I’ve become fascinated with the choreography of the handshake: steady eye contact, slight head nod in acknowledgement, slight step forward, extension of the right hand in one fluid movement before grasping your partner’s hand with just the right amount of pressure.

• https://theconversation.com/is-coronavir...
• https://doi.org/10.64628/AB.snyqfupre