Elbow instead of a kiss? Fist instead of a hug? Since the novel Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 is spreading, greets you differently. Worldwide, in danger of etiquette and rituals come with the pandemic because of the Contagion to the test. Handshake is out. Doctors advise to wash frequent hands and less physical proximity. Also, Federal interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) held on it and rejected the Hand of German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU). And some people may be happy to currently have Donald Trump hand to deny the tätschelnde “trump shake” is notorious.
The people are now looking for suitable Alternatives. Prince Charles tried it with the Indian greeting “Namaste”, hands together and a small subtle bow. Elsewhere, politicians put their hands on their heart or to nod.
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Contact with the front or “nose kiss” prefer to avoid
“There are an infinite number of different Greeting,” says the behavioural biologist Imme Gerke, offering, among other things, cross-cultural training. You self from non-controlling interests 20 forms and search what is suitable. “Then the question is no longer, after the handshake at all. This is what we understand today under diversity.”
Not the contact with the forehead or the “nose kiss” of certain peoples is displayed currently, and also the Bus company needs to take for the time being back. On the Internet Videos in which people give to the “Wuhan-Shake” or “Foot-Shake” for the greeting with the feet a Kick, or touch the hands only hinted at in the rich air circulating for it.
Because patients may already be in front of the first symptoms contagious and viruses on hands, recommend professionals to the fundamental renunciation of the pressure of the hand. “Any unnecessary contact should be avoided at present,” says Petra Gastmeier, head of the National reference centre (NRZ) for Surveillance of nosocomial infections in Berlin.
Only the hands press, then through the face is to dangerous
The Transfer is done, if you touch then with your own hands, in his face, explained the spokesman of the German society for hospital hygiene DGKH, Peter Walger. “The viruses that stick to the hands, wearing then in the mucous membranes of the nose, eyes, or mouth.” How much percent of the Coronavirus infections are transmitted via the handshake, could, however, say no one.
But there is more to it: the one Who shakes hands, is the other close – and here is a further risk of droplet infection threatens. “The shaking hands to say, makes sense only if one adheres to the distance of one or two metres,” says Walger. “Is this distance, not more you shake the hands.”
Thus, each near the greeting is also in contact with the skin solution. “Also embraces, as an Alternative to shaking hands – we would advise you not currently,” for example, when the Bavarian state office for health and food safety (LGL).
Instead of a mouth protection, a scarf helps
Walger has called for calm and responsible behavior. “We should recognize that we have a rampant infection, of the spread of a pathogen that will affect a lot of people.” A priority must be to protect the which might be severely sick: the Old and the Sick. Who have an infection, you should reduce out of consideration to other contact. A simple Mouth guard won’t help practically against his own infection, but could protect the other if one was sick. Instead of a mouth guard, currently anyway, anything that prevents the droplets spread out of stock – do it a scarf or a shawl – “”.
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Maybe in the future, good Manners: mouth protection in the cold. The greeting has been set as yet, no new rite by. Often seen in the Namaste gesture. But for that you need both hands – difficult and not very elegant, when you hold a bag or a cell phone in Hand. Just Smile again, it could be misunderstood as an “I like You,” says Gerke.
Gerkes favored Alternative of Coronavirus-custom welcome, the open Hand on the heart. “This is also done in many of the Arab peoples in a way.” It is often the answer to the fact that men and women should not touch. “That would be a perfect welcome.” There is a man to be more a gesture than a fist in greeting, the many companies promote currently, and with the Barack Obama casually among other things, in the past year, the Green group’s chief in Bavaria, and Katharina Schulze, welcomed.
The elbow is not a good Alternative
Although the fist greeting should – also known as “Fist Bump” or “ghetto fist” – to virus-free than the Hands. However, the Two-Meter distance is observed hardly.
The same applies for the Ebola greeting, the Minister of health, Jens Spahn (CDU) already practiced: only your elbows touching. Also, the singers Howard Carpendale took advantage of this Grußart on Thursday at a press conference. “I’ve met a lot of people greet each other elbow to elbow. But there are so many Welcome – you do not need to invent the elbow,” says Gerke.
The behavioural biologist, the learned, among other things, the researcher Irenaeus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, has a proposal that is so far hardly mentioned, according to your statement, but in the world across cultures is to be understood: “There is a form of Greeting that is common to all humans and also primates innate: The high of the eyebrow to draw.” Also little children react like that. To not greet at all, would, according to Gerke, the worst idea. Because: “The greeting is an aggression-inhibiting mechanism.”