Masks and manners: your essential etiquette tips for a polite and polished pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has changed how we interact, and etiquette has never been more important

An etiquette expert shares her tips for making the right impression now we can’t shake hands, smile at each other, or invite someone for dinner or tea

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The Covid-19 pandemic has changed how we interact. Greet people with a wave and a nod of the head or a slight bow, a Singapore-based etiquette expert advises. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:45pm, 20 Jun 2020Updated: 5:36pm, 21 Jun 2020

Social life in a post-pandemic world, as many have discovered, is dramatically different from life as we knew it. This also means that the way we interact with each other has also changed.

“This pandemic has created a lot of ambiguity about how we should behave in general, but especially in terms of physical contact,” says etiquette consultant Astrie Sunindar-Ratner. “Many of the social etiquette norms that ordinarily enable us to create pleasant and rewarding relationships have been taken away pretty much overnight – we can’t shake hands or smile at each other, or invite someone over for dinner or out to tea.”

Singapore-based Sunindar-Ratner, an entrepreneur and style maven who is often featured in magazines for her feminine sartorial sense, is an international youth and social etiquette consultant, certified by The International Etiquette and Protocol Academy in London.

She says: “Because of the limitations of this new reality, good etiquette is needed now more than ever, and it takes a little more effort, as it requires us to emphasise behaviours we haven’t necessarily habituated to.” She shares some guidelines to new norms of personal style and etiquette to follow in this brave new world.

Astrie Sunindar-Ratner is a Singapore-based etiquette expert.

What are some new norms of etiquette in daily interactions with loved ones and work contacts?