"Meet and Greet and Then Treat" is No Fun: Is It Time To Reinvent No-Touch Greetings For Contact Precautions? A Personal Perspective

Abstract

Cleanliness in general and in healthcare settings in particular as advocated by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with hand-hygiene standards-guidelines bring forth the importance of culprit hands and how to take care of them. There is an unexplored (and potentially overlooked) arena/avenue wherein neither you can strictly/religiously adhere to hand-hygiene (often given amiss by our natural prude psyche) nor you can avoid thinking about it despite human being a social animal (how to else-greet without having to self-treat). Not only should oneself not waste time in prolonged civilities or greetings as advocated but also one should not allow those greetings lingering on to them through the exchanged visible or invisible fluids therein. What does this all may mean is that for example, hand-shaking may be easily replaced with hand-waving so that your mind does not immediately race to hand-washing; and hugging may be easily replaced with bowing so that you are not bowing to the contracted illnesses due to the contacted bodies. Finally what to say about kissing that may be avoided altogether when greeting strangers or may be limited for only those people whom you love so much that you are ready to get sick with them. In summary, general population with societal assent can re-invent No-Touch Greetings for contact precautions in regular livelihoods because meeting and greeting and then rushing for treating self is never fun.