I don’t think we should shake hands ever again after coronavirus pandemic is over, says Dr Fauci
- Dr Anthony Fauci suggested the drastic change to Western greetings yesterday
- Virus-specialist predicted things could improve in the US by the end of April
- Dr Fauci said: ‘I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you’
Dr Anthony Fauci has said he thinks Americans should stop shaking hands after the coronavirus pandemic is over.
Dr Fauci, the country’s top virus specialist and White House adviser, suggested the drastic change to Western-style greetings in an interview on Tuesday.
‘When you gradually come back, you don’t jump into it with both feet,’ Dr Fauci told the Journal’s 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,’ Dr Fauci added.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr Anthony Fauci looks on during a news briefing with members of the Coronavirus Task Force at the White House in Washington yesterday
Bruce Greenstein, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer of the LHC Group offers President Donald Trump an elbow bump in place of a handshake for safety as Dr Anthony Fauci and Vice President Mike Pence look on after the president declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency at a news conference at the White House in Washington, on 13 March
The virus-specialist did predict that things could start to improve in the US by the end of April.
Dr Fauci has previously warned of how the virus could impact life in its aftermath.
On Tuesday, during a White House Covid-19 press briefing, the doctor told a reporter that the world will never return to what was considered ‘normal’ before the novel coronavirus emerged four months ago.
Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, made the somber prediction at after a journalist asked whether the US will be able to ‘get back to normal’ prior to the introduction of a universal vaccine for COVID-19.
‘If “back to normal” means acting like there never was a coronavirus problem, I don’t think that’s going to happen until we do have a situation where you can completely protect the population [with a vaccine],’ Fauci said before clarifying his previous use of the phrase.
The coronavirus death toll in the United States continued to spike on Wednesday with 1,881 new deaths in 24 hours bringing the national total to 14,831.
There are now 435,553 confirmed cases across the country, a jump of 32,890 Wednesday, as the outbreak rockets toward its projected peak on April 12.
The country’s fatality rate is now at 3.4 per cent, a .2 per cent increase, despite a drop in new deaths on Wednesday.
Tuesday’s deaths reached record levels with the highest number of coronavirus deaths registered anywhere in a single day after 1,890 fatalities were reported.
Wednesday’s smaller death toll came as cities that suffered an early outbreak, such as Seattle, began to report a plateau in new cases.
The estimated death toll from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States has been lowered from 82,000 to 60,000 after new projections scaled back the number of fatalities over the next four months by 26 per cent.
The updated projections has also brought forward the peak day of deaths to April 12 where an estimated 2,212 deaths are expected to occur over 24 hours.