Goodbye, Handshake. Hello, LMG

With handshakes on hold because of the pandemic, UConn researchers offer a germ-free way to greet each other in person.

With handshakes on hold because of the pandemic, UConn researchers offer a germ-free way to greet each other in person. ()

Did you know a single handshake can transfer 124 million bacteria?

That’s why, in the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, in the journal Science’s Editor’s Blog entitled “The end of the handshake?,” UConn Health doctors are recommending a new alternative to the handshake to reduce human contact, protect public health, and diminish the spread of the coronavirus.

With hand-to-hand contact now strongly discouraged, and even the popular elbow bump now considered a breeding ground for germs due to the common practice of sneezing and coughing into the elbow region, Dr. Cato T. Laurencin and Dr. Aneesah McClinton of UConn Health’s Connecticut Convergence Institute for Translation in Regenerative Engineering have created “The Laurencin-McClinton Greeting” (LMG) to meet the evolving COVID-19 culture needs.

Their newly developed greeting involves an individual placing their closed fist to their chest just overlying the heart to convey greeting to another. This video, featuring LMG co-inventor Dr. Cato Laurencin and UConn President Thomas Katsouleas,  offers a primer on how to start greeting the safe way.