News

From hopping the bus to extending a hand, an early symptom of the swine flu pandemic is the change it is bringing to social behaviour. Afraid to get it, and worried about spreading it, families, workplaces and community groups are making new, no-flu rules.

Sports

At the end of the game, win or lose, minor league hockey players have been told to keep their gloves on and wave at their opponents from the blue line. So far, tournaments are going ahead as planned, but Hockey Canada coaches are ensuring players don't share water bottles, and keep their gear separate in the locker room. Andy Ives, who is a trainer for his nine-year-old son's house league team and co-ordinator for the men's league in Manotick, Ont., says one adult player even proposed a ban on spitting while on the bench. England's Health Protection Agency is one step ahead of that: They've issued a notice to soccer players warning that spitting could cause the spread of infection and players should avoid doing so. Similar care is being taken at the Olympics this winter, where athletes are already being coached to do the "elbow bump" when greeting fellow competitors.

Kids

Some U.S. schools have suspended their perfect attendance prizes to encourage students to stay home when they are sick. And while Halloween is still on the calendar for most families, some parents say they have started avoiding playgroups and restaurants, and more closely monitoring illnesses when their children do go for play dates. Rachel Riordan, a Toronto-based illustrator who works at home with her two-year-old twins, says she has cancelled sandbox visits at the park and music classes. "My kids will stick anything in their mouths - to my horror."

Greetings

At business meetings, churches, parties and university convocations, the friendly handshake is disappearing - never mind the double-cheeked kiss. More churches have stopped passing the peace for fear of also passing along the virus, relying on bows and nods to spread well-wishes. At the University of Ottawa's convocation last weekend, there were curtseys and Obama fist bumps - but old-fashioned palm-pressing was not permitted. As university president Allan Rock, a former federal minister of health, told the audience: "We still have to communicate our sense of joy....So here are some ideas for you: You can wink or you can nod or you can wave or you can salute."

Public transit

Muffle those coughs, or brace for dirty looks. In Victoria this month, an elderly woman asked a passenger to get off the bus when she coughed into her sleeve. (She did not have the H1N1 virus.) "We're developing war regulations around public displays of ill health," says Victoria city Councillor Philippe Lucas, who thinks buses should carry hand sanitizer for passengers.

Work

Sniffling employees increasingly find themselves caught between the pressure to show up and the insistence of wary co-workers that they stay home. Last week, when Catherine Kaloutsky, a spokeswoman for Via Rail, coughed at the office - just to clear her throat - it was enough to rattle her colleagues. "Quite literally, everybody around me said, 'Are you sick? Do you think you're sick, because you should go home. We don't want you here,' " she recounts. Workers at the Toronto communications consulting firm Cohn & Wolfe are now equipped with laptops and BlackBerrys so they can work from home. "It's accelerated plans for portable communication," says Dave Gordon, executive vice-president. In some workplaces, the measures are more informal: One employee at a career counselling centre in Brockville, Ont., comes in early each day to wipe down all the doorknobs and countertops.

With reports from Tavia Grant and Jane Taber