Stop Using Hand Dryers!
Ok. I get it. The bathroom has no towels around and you simply want to dry your hands. The air dryer is right there so you start to dry your hands...Please don’t! During this Covid-19 virus pandemic that would be a wrong move to make.
Dr. Brian Kaminski, from ProMedica, states,
" '...they (World Health Organization) recommend against hand dryers. The theory there is that you put your hands under forced heat and that blows some particles around. If your hands are still moist, that’s going to blow droplets around, it’s going to deposit those droplets onto other surfaces.’" (1)
This confirms banning hand dryers should happen now.
Hand dryers can be a petri dish for germs according to
Applied Environmental
Microbiology,
"These results indicate that many kinds of bacteria, including potential pathogens and spores, can be deposited on hands exposed to bathroom hand dryers and that spores could be dispersed throughout buildings and deposited on hands by hand dryers." (2)
Here’s one more confirmation that hand dryers blow germs.
The Senior Medical Advisor for PM Pediatrics, Dr. Christina Johns, states
"What we do know is that air blowers in the bathroom circulate all the germs and air particles around, and we know that is not a good thing," (3)
If I’m in line waiting to use the bathroom and see someone going to use a hand dryer I will request for them not to. I will briefly say the reasons why. Most will say, Oh! I didn’t know that. Thank you.
Yet, this is not always the case. One young child with his mom glared at me and stomped his foot several times. His mom told him to stop it; which he did. I guess he really likes to use the hand dryer as if it’s a fun game. But keeping the virus away is not a game and it’s definitely not fun. I hope some adults don’t have that kind of reaction about not using the hand dryer. This is not the time to be stubborn with our ideology.
Everyone should realize how crucial every move is during this pandemic.
Until we are over this pandemic, and out of the woods, the government should ban hand dryers.
Please pass this information on & it may help save lives.
Footnote:
(1)
Tyler Paley, "VERIFY: Can you contract COVID-19 from an automatic hand dryer?," WTOL, March 30, 2020,
https://www.wtol.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/verify-can-you-contract-covid-19-from-an-automatic-hand-dryer/512-c938df6f-f8b6-481b-986f-d0823c636995
(2)
Luz del Carmen Huesca-Espitia, Jaber Aslanzadeh, Richard Feinn, Gabrielle Joseph, Thomas S. Murray, Peter Setlow
Donald W. Schaffner- Editor,
"Deposition of Bacteria and Bacterial Spores by Bathroom Hot-Air Hand Dryers,"
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, April 2018, 84 (8), e00044-18;
DOI: 10.1128/AEM.00044-18.
https://aem.asm.org/content/84/8/e00044-18
(3)
Rebecca Gale, "Wash and dry hands to prevent the spread of coronavirus, but avoid that hot-air dryer,"
The Washington Post, March 13, 2020,
