by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
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Things I’ve been worrying about lately:
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- the COVID-19 variants
- our record-breaking heat wave
- devastating forest fires
- air quality (see: forest fires)
- the deer eating my zinnias
Okay, that last one may seem trivial (but I was TOLD that deer won’t touch zinnias – which is apparently FALSE!) I have also noticed that my cardiac symptoms don’t even make that worry list these days. .
There is simply so much else to occupy my worry time lately.
As so many of my Heart Sisters readers keep telling me, their worst worries on any given day are often not the cardiac issues they’ve spent years getting used to, but new and unexpected issues.
For example, just when I thought that ongoing chest pain, shortness of breath and crushing fatigue were my biggest “normal” worries, this past winter those cardiac symptoms somehow faded into second place. I was far too busy focusing on debilitating new symptoms of persistent plantar fasciitis in my right heel. This is a repeat of an excruciatingly painful foot injury that ended my running life years ago. (See also: “Running Past”, my Runner’s World essay on becoming a former runner after 19 years).
But lately, I’ve started fretting about a brand new thing to worry about (on top of climate change, a sore heel and my poor zinnias) – and that brand new thing is shaking hands again.
In a post-COVID world, I now wonder: will people go back to the handshake? How should I respond to that? And don’t even get me started on casual acquaintances who move in for a hug the way we used to do.
Right now, where I live on the beautiful west coast of Canada, it turns out that I’m not the only one worrying about returning to handshakes. This month, both our hospitalization and death rates due to the COVID-19 virus are increasing according to the B.C. Centres for Disease Control updates. This pandemic is not over until it’s over.
Jack Knox’s recent essay in our local Times-Colonist compared his own recent handshake to cheating on his wife.
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“Really, after a year and a half of self-conscious elbow bumps and sheepish head nods, it seemed wrong. Ridden with guilt, I confessed when I got home, trying to explain that my handshake kind of happened spontaneously, like that time you accidentally slept with your spouse’s best friend. ‘Baby, it didn’t mean anything! He stuck his hand out and I grabbed it by instinct!’ ”
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Right now, even the thought of grabbing a stranger’s hand does seem downright creepy to me. But I’m fully vaccinated and boosted, so shouldn’t Jack and I be feeling braver and bolder around the hands of strangers?
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Jack cites infectious diseases expert Dr. William Schaffner, interviewed on CNN recently: Dr. S. personally had no qualms about shaking hands with a vaccinated person, but said he would not do so with those whose status was unknown.
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“What really made him wary was not so much the physical contact, but coming so close to another person, and getting near enough to suck in their COVID-laden breath.”
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And as Dr. Schaffner told CNN:
“If you’re shaking hands, you’re usually really quite close to someone, at least momentarily, and you’re likely to be close to that person in conversation for a period of time.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention remind us that ingesting airborne droplets is still how the coronavirus has been able to spread worldwide. Those droplets are even more worrisome if they’re being enthusiastically spewed in your direction by an unmasked handshake partner’s loud talking, laughing or singing. Speaking of masks, randomized controlled trials on mask use have found that the main benefit appears to be to others around the mask wearer, with a 79% reduction in secondary cases.(1) Thanks to all that mask-wearing, cold and flu season barely happened last winter.
Meanwhile, we know that the social practice of shaking hands has been around for thousands of years. In 800 B.C., the poet Homer referenced people clasping hands upon greeting each other, perhaps to reassure others that they came in peace and weren’t holding weapons.
How many of us are willing to abandon such an entrenched social practice?
University of Toronto psychiatrist Dr. Sarah Levitt understands that willingness after such a long and stressful period of pandemic anxiety, adding:
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“We’ve all been at such a heightened state of vigilance. It takes some time for your body and your mind to come down from that.
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“It’s important to teach people that it’s okay to be anxious sometimes. Anxiety can teach you something about an experience that you’re in, as long as it’s not functionally impairing you and making your life smaller.”
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Anxiety, Dr. Levitt suggests, can sometimes be a “helpful reaction,” prompting us to take measures to either protect ourselves or as a driver of change, safety/health, and evolution.
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In a time of great threat, anxiety about catching a deadly virus can motivate us to do what few could have ever imagined at one time: to undertake massive personal restrictions and safety protocols to protect ourselves, our families or our communities. During months of personal sacrifice, tragic family crises (including, for many families, hospitalizations and deaths) and overwhelming helplessness, we also saw example after example of kindness in support of the common good.
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I know that post-COVID anxiety about a stranger’s hand being thrust toward me will be a stretch for me. Some residual COVID precautions we may decide to keep, and some we’ll be able to let go pretty darned fast.
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In the calming advice of Dr. Bonnie Henry, our former B.C. provincial health official:
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“As we start to put the pandemic behind us, some of us will be taking it slower than others. Be respectful and kind as you consider others’ situations and personal choices.”
Take care out there. . . ♥
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1. Bundgaard H. et al. “Effectiveness of Adding a Mask Recommendation to Other Public Health Measures to Prevent SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Danish Mask Wearers.” Ann Intern Med 2021;174:335–43. https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-6817.
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NOTE FROM CAROLYN: I wrote much more about heart patients and stress in my book A Woman’s Guide to Living with Heart Disease (Johns Hopkins University Press). You can ask for this book at your local bookshop, or order it online (paperback, hardcover or e-book) at Amazon, or order it directly from Johns Hopkins University Press. Save 30% by ordering this book directly from Johns Hopkins University Press, using the code HTWN .
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Q: Which pandemic precautions will you choose to continue – or to stop?
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See also:
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Heart Sisters 
Interesting blog
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What amazed me about covid and the restrictions were the number of people that did not wash their hands regularly. Hygiene people. Germs don’t spread much from a healthy clean mouth or frequently washed hands. And I don’t mean ridiculous hand sanitizers.
I did CPR mouth to mouth to a drowning victim last July in the middle of covid. You can’t live scared. Just live. The man survived and so will you. Shake people’s hands. START living again.
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First of all, bless you Jennifer for stepping up to do mouth-to-mouth CPR last summer. So glad there was a positive end to that dramatic story.
I too have been shocked at the loosey-goosey attention to hand hygiene – especially lately. The worst: I was waiting for an elevator recently; the doors opened just in time for the biggest, wettest, loudest, most explosive sneeze ever from a (maskless) man about to get off that elevator, who then proceeded to wipe the snot dripping from his nose with his fingers (!) That small elevator instantly turned into a petri dish of contagion for up to three hours, not to mention any surface or doorknob or button that man wiped those fingers on. Ew…
I will start living again – but I won’t voluntarily offer to shake that hand!
Take care, stay safe. . . ♥
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We are still in the middle of a pandemic in America with Delta variant cases rising.
I was fully vaxxed back in February And starting to wonder if boosters will be needed.
I Still wear a mask in all indoor settings Stores etc. unless a fully vaxxed group people I know. I have experimented with restaurants with vaxxed friends. I knew my friend had a cold but we removed our masks and ate dinner together…And YES, I caught the cold! Viruses jump across the table even during the short time of the meal.
As restrictions started lifting here in Denver, the first person to offer me a hand shake was my Nephrologist … He was masked and I assume vaxxed and I figured it must be okay so I shook his hand. It indeed was strange. I felt like running for the hand sanitizer! I didn’t run, but kept that hand in my lap and hit the sanitizer on the way out. LOL
I wear my mask in the car with my adult son. He is vaccinated but is out in a very public job unmasked, and I do believe can carry around undesirable viruses in his nose. He teases me, but says he doesn’t mind because I’m old and he doesn’t want me to get sick.
Yes, I am old and I’m not afraid of death, but I am also smart and avoiding a COVID infection is smart in my world. And very much more important than what any other person may think of my mask habits.
Big adventure – I’m masking up and going to Las Vegas for 2 days with my brother… I’ll let you know how it goes.
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Hello Jill – That ‘hand in your lap’ strategy reminds me of the early public health warning, “Don’t touch your FACE!” It’s only when I really focused on that warning that I realized how often I unconsciously touch my mouth, rub my eyes, etc.
Keeping ourselves protected (e.g. you wearing your mask in the confined small space of a car with questionable ventilation – unless all the windows are wide open) does seem like a smart thing to do. With the summer weather here, there are lots of open air patios to meet our family and friends at. Maybe by the fall, the pandemic will actually be over (not just wishful-thinking “freedom days” opening-up announcements decreed by politicians).
Wow! Vegas!! Yes, please let us know how that trip goes. Just read that they are reinstating recommendations to wear masks in indoor public places – including Vegas casinos – regardless of vaccination status. And of course stay extra safe while you’re there! ♥
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