If I had to guess, I’d say I shook hands with 50 people at the last industry event I attended. At the next one, I expect it to be zero. I’ll be following the advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and a prominent advisor to the Trump Administration on its coronavirus response. In an interview with the The Journal podcast, Fauci suggests two things people need to do differently as the country plans to get back to business: “One of them is absolute compulsive hand-washing. The other is you don’t ever shake anybody’s hands.”
But Fauci’s advice—“I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again”—should come with an asterisk. There are plenty of alternative greetings that organizers could build into the culture of their meetings and events. Palm-to-palm pleasantries may be out, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be greeting our colleagues. Beyond the elbow bump, here are 14 handshake alternatives from Mashable. My favorite? The Jim and Pam high-five.
