Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, says that for the rest of our existence we should forgo shaking people's hands. Yes even after the Pandemic is over.
Dr. Fauci said during a Tuesday Wall Street Journal podcast that once the country begins to loosen lockdown restrictions, we should still proceed with caution. “When you gradually come back, you don’t jump into it with both feet,” the doctor told podcast host Kate Linebaugh. “You say, what are the things you could still do and still approach normal? One of them is absolute compulsive hand-washing. The other is you don’t ever shake anybody’s hands.”
“I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you,” he added later. “Not only would it be good to prevent coronavirus disease; it probably would decrease instances of influenza dramatically in this country.”
Earlier this week during another interview with Sinclair Broadcast Group, he made a similar plea. “As a society, just forget about shaking hands,” he added. “We don’t need to shake hands. We’ve got to break that custom. Because as a matter of fact, that is really one of the major ways that you can transmit a respiratory illness.”