A senior hospital consultant has repeated her warning that electric hand dryers should be switched off immediately to prevent the spread of coronavirus as lockdown is eased.
Speaking to Sky News, Dr Charlotte Fowler, who has 27 years of health service experience and works for a large London NHS trust, fears the use of the machines by a COVID-19 carrier could generate contaminated aerosols or micro-droplets, threatening to infect anyone breathing them in for up to three hours.
Dr Fowler pointed out aerosols were known to pose the biggest risk of coronavirus infection, which was why NHS staff wore special protective equipment when dealing with certain medical procedures, such as putting a patient on a ventilator.
The imaging specialist, who uses aerosols in her own work to test patients with lung problems, feels so strongly about the danger to the public she has launched a petition calling for a ban on hand dryers.
As restrictions are lifted and more businesses, including pubs and restaurants, are set to reopen, Dr Fowler argued it was essential that the use of the devices was halted until aerosol-trapping filters were developed and they were shown to be safe.
Instead, just as people have started to use face masks, she suggested people could carry small pocket hand cloths to dry their hands when out.
Dr Fowler also accused the government of ignoring evidence from its own specialist advisers for hand dryers to be turned off, and so putting the public at risk.
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Despite writing to the UK government's Chief Medical Adviser Professor Chris Whitty three months ago to raise her concerns, but hand dryers are still being recommended by the government.
Pointing to the ability of hand dryers to create create aerosols from wet hands, Dr Fowler said: "Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we didn't really worry too much about the fact that there were germs in the aerosols because there were none that posed a threat to our health.
"But since COVID, as it is so dangerous we all need to avoid getting infected.
"We have known that aerosols infected with COVID are really dangerous as they can be inhaled deep down into your lungs"
"Everyone is completely paranoid about anything that involves aerosols around COVID patients in hospitals.
"So it's a bit strange to me that, although everyone knows hand dryers create aerosols, that hand dryer use hasn't been treated with the same level of concern as aerosol-generating procedures in hospitals.
"The aerosols produced by a hand dryer could potentially be just as dangerous as intubating a patient on an Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU) if someone with the infection uses it."
"The aerosols produced by a hand dryer could be just as dangerous as intubating a patient on an Intensive Treatment Unit (ITU)."
Dr Fowler added: "We know COVID survives for three hours as an aerosol.
"So it means if someone goes and washes their hands in a public loo and dries their hands, they might be really lucky and wash their hands with 100% efficiency, but usually people don't.
"So the chances are that if someone goes and uses that, anyone who comes in for the next three hours could be infected by the aerosols."
Evidence provided to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) by experts on the Environmental and Modelling Group (EMG), recommending hand dryers be switched off had not been acted on, she said.
She told Sky News: "The government's own advisers have asked that hand dryers be turned off.
"My concern is that when people go to the pub they might catch COVID in the toilets because of hand dryers.
"I am not anti-electric hand dryers, I just anti them at the time of COVID. I am personally really frightened.
"This is the only area I can think of where aerosols are being generated by machines where the general public are in danger as a result of it."
The Department of Health has been contacted for a comment.
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June 22, 2020 at 01:55AM
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