From Rob Sheldon
In his letter (12 October, p 31), Lawrence D’Oliveiro suggests that a handshake quashes Valerie Curtis’s idea that manners in part evolved to avoid spreading disease (21 September, p 28), because such contact helps spread influenza.
But it is worth noting that handshaking keeps a potential influenza victim at two arms’ lengths, roughly the limit of typical airborne transfer, which is more of a hazard than touching a surface that has the virus on it. Leeds, UK
