My handshake brings everyone to the yard

Handshakes, and their distant cousin, hugs, used to be so commonplace that you hardly even noticed when you gave someone the old Grip 'n' Grin, or the Belgian Back Pat.  Handshaking actually began in ancient times as a way to show strangers you encountered that you weren't carrying a blunderbuss or a cat o' nine tails or some other weapon. Until recently, no one even thought twice about sticking their grubby paw in yours and squeezing like a blood pressure cuff, or wrapping their arms around you so tight that their hands met at your iliac crest.

And then came the pandemic, and we all feared cooties as man has feared nothing since the Black Plague (1346 to 1353). Masked up, and occasionally gloved, we stayed 6 feet apart at all times, which distancing rendered handshakes impossible.

And now that we are returning to "normalcy," it feels a bit awkward to even see someone's mouth, let alone take their hand in yours.

Perhaps this can help. You don't have anything to worry about IF you’ve been vaccinated for COVID-19. That's the word from pulmonologist Akhil Bindra, MD. He says if you've had the needle(s), you have “little to no risk” of getting the virus through the casual contact of a handshake.

Dr. Bindra says that society will have to learn to deal with changes in social ways, given the pandemic and the vaccines, which offer us protection against the virus while slowing the spread of the disease.

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) have released guidelines that say fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or practicing social distancing, except under certain circumstances. And they define "fully vaccinated" as having received a single-dose coronavirus vaccine (Johnson & Johnson) or the second dose of a two-dose vaccine series (Pfizer and Moderna).

Dr. Bindra points out that recent data show vaccinated people having "less of a chance of contracting COVID-19 than they would of picking up a flu bug in a normal year."

“The key here is being vaccinated,” he says. “That is where the path begins on the return to normal. It’s how you can get back to living life the way you remember and feeling safe while doing it.”

And he points out that the simple act of shaking hands with confidence is part of our return to "feeling human after a year of living in fear."

So, the doctors say, if you're vaxxed, go ahead and shake, unless you see the other person coughing into their hand or something else gross, in which case you can just pretend you NEED to keep your hands in your pockets.

 Feel better now? Let's shake on it.