Swine Flu Reduces Graduation Hand Shaking

This month, several colleges and high schools are holding graduations all across the country. Students will line up and wait to hear their names called to receive their diplomas. They will walk across the stage but they will not find a hand outstretched to greet them. No, swine flu (H1N1) has changed all of that.

Instead they will pose for a picture with the President or Principal without the usual handshake, thus reducing the chance that the virus is spread. Imagine having to shake a couple hundred, or even a couple thousand hands during a ceremony. Even if you weren’t sick, what are the chances that one of the hands you touched had the virus and you were inadvertently passing to every hand you shook from that point on. So several schools have made the decision to forgo the customary handshake for this year.

Well of course this makes sense. If this continues, how then will we “seal the deal” in business? If the saying is “A man’s handshake is his word,” will the new word be “contamination?”