Salman Khan has joined Anupam Kher in advocating for a desi solution to avoiding the coronavirus (COVID-19) without alienating your friends and loved ones. The actor posted a photo of himself with his hands folded into a namaste and wrote, “Namashkaar ... hamari sabhyata mein namaste aur salaam hai! Jab #coronavirus Khatam ho jaye tab haath milao aur gale lago... (In our culture, we greet people with a namaste or salaam. When the coronavirus outbreak has died down, we can go back to shaking hands and hugging.)”
Anupam Kher recently took to Twitter to share a similar tip. In a video message, he suggests greeting someone the “age old Indian way” – folding them into a polite namaste rather than shaking hands. “It’s hygienic, friendly and centres your energies,” he says.
The novel coronavirus was first reported in Wuhan in the Hubei province of China in December, and has so far claimed over 3,000 lives across the globe. It belongs to the same family of viruses as the one that caused the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak which originated in China in 2002-2003. Cases have been reported in the US, Canada, Germany, Finland, France, Italy, Sri Lanka, Australia, Japan, Iran and India.
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