Question

At work, the best way to dry your hands after washing is
A. Using a warm air dryer
B. Give them a shake
C. Using a cotton towel
D. Using a paper towel

Answer 1

Hint: It is important to dry hands thoroughly after washing because some bacteria remain on hands after washing, and these bacteria are more easily spread via wet hands than dry ones.

Complete answer:
Wet hands are more likely to spread diseases. Therefore the traditional shaking-off of excess water, or maybe the 5-second-trouser-rub, isn’t advised.
Particularly in the places where bacterias and viruses can spread quickly and become harmful to one’s health – think schools, restaurants, bars and hospitals – proper hand drying is very important.
Some methods available:
- Shaking and waving
-Paper towels
- Paper towels should closely be followed by rolling cloth
-Hot air hand
- High speed hand dryers and blade hand dryers with UV protection are also available these days.
Each hand drying method has its own merits and disadvantages – some more so than others.
Shaking and waving:
Shaking dry was the sole hand drying option when washing hands was first popularised. Before the likes of Ignaz Semmelweis championed hand-washing, doctors were known to perform surgeries after autopsies without washing their hands in between.
The advantages of shaking dry:
On the plus side, when wishing on nature to dry your hands, you don’t necessarily touch anything.
Bathroom surfaces often harbour pathogens and bacteria. Limiting what you touch in a very public bathroom may be a good idea.
The disadvantages of shaking dry:
Touching things like food or people passes on more bacteria when hands are wet than when hands are dry. Shaking and waving leaves hands wet for extended.
When it involves hygiene, shaking and waving may be a poor method of hand drying.
Paper towels: The humble towel, easily one amongst the smallest amount technologically advanced hand drying methods, continues to be in use today. And it’s effective.
The advantages of drying hands with paper towels
The big advantage here is speed. Users can dry their hands very quickly with paper towels, often while on the move.
Some researchers speculate that the friction paper towels generate helps to get rid of bacteria.
The disadvantages of drying hands with paper towels
Hygiene-wise, paper towels do an honest job of removing bacteria from hands. But they don’t kill bacteria. They merely transfer it from hands onto a towel.
Hot air hand dryers: Hot air hand dryers are the hand dryers that appear to plod along at their own pace. Compared to high speed hand dryers, they’re in no real hurry to rid hands of moisture. Instead, run through evaporation: they heat excess water so excess water evaporates from hands.
The advantages of hot air hand dryers:
Hot air hand dryers are more practical than shaking. In fact, when used correctly, they'll dry hands even as well as paper towels.
Plus, with innovations like automatic sensors, you don’t really want to touch any bathroom surfaces to use them.
Drawbacks:
The primary drawback of hot air hand dryers is that individuals rarely use them correctly. These machines take around 45 seconds to dry hands effectively. In both cases, it’s a secure bet people were walking faraway from restrooms with wet hands – and spending pathogens on to whatever they then touched.
High speed hand dryers and blade hand dryers: When it involves hand drying, high speed and blade hand dryers are the most recent innovations on the market. Blade hand dryers use similar technology but go further. Blades treat hands with a concentrated ‘blade’ of air that whips away moisture. Rather than relying solely on evaporation, the innovations blast moisture from the skin.
The advantages of high speed hand dryers
High speed hand dryers are built to beat the issues related to traditional methods of hand drying. The largest advantage is perhaps speed – the newest models can dry hands in as little as 8 seconds.
And, because they work so quickly, they’re both more economical and greener than non-high speed counterparts.
The disadvantages of high speed hand dryers
Some studies suggest high speed hand dryers shoot germs into the air, although the validity of such claims has been questioned.
Blade hand dryers that actively collect the water they blast from hands are designed to combat such problems.
So, the correct answer is “Option D”.

Note:
Rubbing hands together under an electrical dryer can bring bacteria that live within the skin to the surface. Paper towels are the simplest option for hand drying. Towel dispensers also are touch free in theory and there are automatic choices available. Some hand dryers and towel dispensers include antimicrobial additives in their materials to kill any bacteria left on surfaces from splash back.