Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has suggested that Americans should never shake hands again in light of the coronavirus crisis.

While discussing how and when coronavirus restrictions could start to be lifted across the country in on the The Wall Street Journal’s podcast, Dr Fauci said: “When you gradually come back, you don’t jump into it with both feet. You say, what are the things you could still do and still approach normal? One of them is absolute compulsive hand-washing. The other is you don’t ever shake anybody’s hands.”

“I don’t think we should eves\hake hands ever again, to be honest with you. Not only would it be good to prevent coronavirus disease; it probably would decrease instances of influenza dramatically in this country,” the doctor added according to The Hill.

The key member of the White House task force said he hopes to see a “light at the end of the tunnel” in regards to the pandemic, by the end of April.

On Monday, Dr Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House response to the coronavirus, also expressed that officials has began investigating whether social distancing measures could be relaxed in some parts of the country by the end of the month.

“We’re doing a series of clear investigations of what happened in Washington and LA, and what does that mean and how you keep the number of cases down,” Dr Birx said in an interview on Good Morning America.

New daily updated scientific data suggest that the coronavirus pandemic will peak in the US on 12 April, with 2,212 people predicted to die in one day at its height.

The data, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), projected that the first wave of the epidemic would likely end in early June, but only if social-distancing measures continue to be observed.