A senior doctor from the UK calls for the removal of hand dryers in public places as she says the devices are just disasters waiting to happen in worsening the spread of the coronavirus.
According to Dr. Charlotte Fowler, a consultant radiologist at Guy's and St. Thomas', droplets from hand dryers pose a threat of being inhaled for up to three hours. She voices out her concerns about the aerosols, which could possibly carry the coronavirus.
Dr. Fowler has recently submitted a written concern to the government about her concerns. She has also initiated a petition to ban hand dryers.
Deaths related to COVID-19 have surpassed 40,000 in the UK. Moreover, Boris Johnson is expected to announce an increase in cases after the easing of the lockdown.
Germs Associated with Hand Dryers
A study in 2018 shows how bacteria from flushed toilets could be thrown 15 feet in the air and be sucked in through hand dryers. In turn, this bacteria could end up on someone's hands after using the dryers.
Even so, people didn't seem to be bothered by this fact. Although hand dryers churn out loads of bacteria, it doesn't necessarily mean it could cause sickness. After all, microbes are everywhere, and a vast majority of them don't automatically make one sick.
However, it's a different story with the coronavirus, Dr. Fowler says. Many studies have established that aerosols infected with the virus are hazardous as they can be inhaled deep into a person's lungs.
She shares how it shocks her that people have become so paranoid about the spread of aerosols, but none have considered the possible threat caused by hand dryers. Furthermore, she explains how the aerosols from a hand dryer could be as dangerous as intubating a patient in the intensive care unit.
Frightening Scenarios of Using Hand Dryers During the Pandemic
Picture how people in a restaurant or a pub visit the restroom, do their business, wash their hands to keep germs and pathogens off, only to have them drawn back to their hands by using the hand dryer.
Dr. Fowler voices out her worry about scenarios like these happening. She argues how she is not anti-electric hand dryers, but she is just for the use of the devices at a time like this.
She says that hand dryers in public restrooms are the only place she could think of where aerosols are being produced by machines that immediately put the general public in danger. Moreover, she cautions how the coronavirus survives being suspended in the air for about three hours as an aerosol.
Dr. Fowler says it would be very fortunate if people wash their hands with 100 percent efficiency all the time, but this isn't always the case. She says that if someone goes in the toilet and uses the hand dryer, the chances are the aerosols could infect anyone who comes in and uses the machine for the next three hours.
What's worse is if someone who's unknowingly sick with COVID-19 comes in and uses the hand dryer, leaves the virus for the next ones who come in and use it. Dr. Fowler is fearful that this could cause a second wave of the coronavirus infection later this year.
