The pandemic caused by COVID-19 continues to send shockwaves around the world. While many countries and territories have gradually begun to ease social restrictions imposed as a result of the pandemic, people are still required to wear face masks in public, avoid shaking hands and maintain a minimum distance of at least two meters between persons.
In the disorderly African and Latin American countries in particular, even those prescribed restrictions have been mostly observed in the breach. In the main event, minor things usually taken for granted in the past such as the shaking of hands, the exchange of hugs, high fives and pecking the cheeks like the French do have probably now disappeared for ever.
All through the history of man, the handshake has been a symbol of many different things. At once, it sought to engender trust between two or more parties especially in the realms of business, diplomacy or even warfare. People would often seal agreements reached at any of those levels with a firm handshake. In male dominated societies of sub-Saharan Africa, even the women increasingly began to have handshakes with men in business and diplomacy. In social gatherings like weddings, burials and child naming ceremonies, this is a habit which has steadily grown in currency among various people. It was no longer common to find women who would say that they don’t shake hands with men.
All of that was despite the abundance of evidence, however, that our hands are major proliferators of disease. On this page in the past, we did explore about a dozen bacterial infections that could be spread by the unwashed hand. In the recent past, we have also looked at a similar number of viral infections which were possible to be spread by failing to wash the hands. However, because old habits die hard, handshakes and the exchange of high fives and fist bumps went on nevertheless always with the assumption that any infection contracted thereby could be treated with the administration of simple antibiotics. That spectacle may now be about to change as mankind becomes more and more vulnerable to infections which do not have a reliable remedy. As we all saw with the Ebola virus disease and now with COVID-19, it has become clear that exposure to the respective viruses can pursue unexpected courses in various people.
In the past, people visiting your home for the first time were likely to be welcomed with warm handshakes, firm hugs and excited high fives. We may not see these sorts of demonstrative greetings in the future as people learn to transition to elbow bumps and back slapping. The latter form of greeting is likely to be made possible with both parties standing beside each other, perhaps at an arm’s length, and simultaneously rubbing one another’s back. That might not show the same level of positive neuronal response as we have become accustomed to in shaking the hands. As the hands are adept at propagating disease, so also do the lips of people who are not domiciled in the same house. If a couple live together, they probably have nothing to fear with regards to making such close bodily contact. When they do not live together, it would present problems that could mirror a certain level of lack in proximity. Issues of trust and even the enactment of a formal relationship would become dominant problems in many relationships.
What has become certain from several models of infectious diseases of this nature is that when they attack man, they are not usually eradicated in full. Several pockets of the disease remain in various parts of the planet. From those pockets, there are occasional flare-ups which can re-ignite pandemics at other intervals. If that is the case, we may be witnessing the gradual disappearance of normal social interactions. These social interactions are the issues which we have dealt with since the beginning of this essay. We face a world in which we may not shake hands again except with the folks we live with; an environment in which sportsmen and women are unable to exchange high fives and a world in which a handshake and a peck on the cheeks would then become anathema. And there would be other pandemics that would add to this one. It may be in five years or 10 years or another century, but it would happen. As long as the world’s population continues to increase with associated urbanisation, so also shall we continue to see situations where microbes usually hidden deep in forests and even caves, somehow jump into human populations and cause the sort of disruptions that we are now emerging from.
As a general effect of climate change, the Indonesian capital Jakarta, on the island of Java, is sinking into the sea. The rising waters around the city are caused by a combination of factors not the least of which is the dependence of majority of its inhabitants on underground water sources. Boreholes were sunk indiscriminately and the net effect has been the gradual collapse of the earth overlying those bodies of underground water. That together with the warming oceans provided a perfect storm, a city at once sinking and at the same time being threatened with rising ocean waters. The government decided therefore, to relocate the capital city to East Kalimantan but the problem with that is that a virgin jungle surrounding a beautiful lake is going to give way to yet another human habitation. The move would displace orangutans, komodo dragons and a host of other exotic animal and plant species and ensure the escape of some of the microbes they habour into the general population. Then pronto, another widespread infection could be at our doorsteps.
In the current circumstances, we all will have to learn once more how to relate physically with one another. We will need some other form of tactile interrogation to replace handshakes and body hugs and in the main, we may even have to do completely without any of that. During the Ebola virus pandemic, people learnt to communicate without having to touch hands. Many simply waved at each other and others had fun giving themselves elbow bumps. But the problem receded and with that came back into reckoning all the social contacts we had learnt over generations. In an age when it has become clear that the hands are a major vector of diseases, that attitude may be about to change permanently especially when it is clear that this disease will not be beaten completely. It is almost impossible to imagine a goal scorer in a football match not having to celebrate his effort with wild hugs.
Copyright PUNCH.
0 Comments