LETTER: Don’t blow it — use towels

Matt Hancock the secretary of state for health and social care, warns us that we must abide by the current rules regarding social distancing and other prudent behaviours so that we maintain the momentum we have gained in the fight against the pandemic, and not to lose the gains made to date with the instruction “don’t blow it”.

There has been much discussion in the media about meeting outdoors and opening windows in dwellings to increase ventilation in order to blow away the aerosol borne virus spores.

Yet, we still have jet-propelled hand dryers in most toilets in the country.

Toilets in pubs, restaurants, cafes, motorway service stations, cinemas and concert venues are typically situated in the interior of a building with either no external windows or very small window openings and little extraction or air exchange mechanisms.

Everyone, with or without symptoms of Covid, eagerly follows the instructions to wash their hands and then merrily blows the water from their drying hands all over the interior of the toilet!

If we are genuinely going to “not blow it” shouldn’t we ban the use of air dryers and return to good old disposable paper towels?

Answer please, Matt Hancock.

Ian Nicholls, via email