VIDEO: Make elbow room for this new coronavirus go-to greeting

Gulf Today Report

Tackling the coronavirus involves elbow grease, whichever way you look at it. It also entails a lot of care and control.

Like the virus, the concomitant fear has assumed global proportions, which has drastically changed people’s attitudes towards daily habits – and social interaction.

People are making full-on efforts to become au fait with preventive measures. Contactless  ‘hellos’ have become the new normal. Nationals in many countries have been urged to refrain from hugs and kisses while accosting each other. However, many have resorted to innovative methods of salutation: foot taps and – what is trendy now – elbow bumps, which would normally be commonplace in such places as a basketball court.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva (left) and World Bank Group President David Malpass bump elbows in Washington, DC. File / AFP

Everyone from high-powered political leaders and health officials has plumped for this form of greeting, the way a duck takes to water.

US Vice President Mike Pence, who was appointed by the Trump administration to take the lead on the US response to the coronavirus outbreak, set a good example of the growing trend as he arrived in Washington state to meet Governor Jay Inslee.

Dr. Dena Grayson, a physician and biochemist who studies pandemic threats, told ABC News she's a huge proponent of the inventive introductions.

"There're so many videos circulating all over the world of people doing the foot taps and elbow bumps and I think it's fantastic," she said. "I think elbow bumps are a great alternative to handshakes because you really can't do that right now."

US Surgeon General Vice Admiral Jerome M. Adams(right) bumps elbows with Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont in Rocky Hill, Connecticut. File / AP

Senator Lindsey Graham is offering elbow bumps instead of handshakes, while Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is putting her hand over her heart in greeting. Senator Bill Cassidy is offering up hand sanitisers while Sen. Marco Rubio is washing his hands so often that he has "to start moisturising.”

President Donald Trump is a self-professed germaphobe with a longtime aversion for shaking hands with strangers. "One of the curses of American society is the simple act of shaking hands, and the more successful and famous one becomes the worse this terrible custom seems to get,” Trump wrote in his 1997 book, "Art of the Comeback.”

He told reporters on Wednesday, "I haven’t touched my face in weeks. I miss it.”

Make elbow room for that.