• єχтяαναgαηтєηzумє@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    Well, urine is sterile, and if only touch the door in and out of the bathroom, washing doesn’t always seem necessary. If you get pee on your hands, then by all means. But if the only option is air blades for hand drying, you’re better off not washing. Those literally lace your hands in fecal matter when used in a public restroom.

    • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
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      4 months ago

      Urine isn’t sterile. While it’s true that paper towels are better than dryers, drying your hands (even with a dryer) is better than not drying. Washing your hands is, obviously, better than not washing your hands.

      If you don’t wash your hands you’re already in the worst case. It makes no sense to complain about the methods of drying available.

      • Reucnalts@feddit.de
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        4 months ago

        Drying with air blower is better than not drying? Mhh but its not like that washing without drying is worse than not washing? Yeah i mean bacteria like wet areas but i dont see the point that drying is they key point about the hygiene. I sweat a lot and my hands take a big part of it. So even after drying they get wet really fast, so i think the most important part is Soap. These little mafuckers love it wet but more they hate it if its alcaline. So dont save up on the Soap :)

      • єχтяαναgαηтєηzумє@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Other peoples fecal matter will contain many forigen bacteria, and these microbes are proven to coat the hands of people after using air driers. My apologies about the sterile urine comment. Nonetheless, you’d be in a better situation with bacteria on your hands from your own pee vs from a strangers feces. One’s apart of your microbiota, while the other is entirely foreign. IDK, I’ve seen many cases where washing your hands after a piss made no sense due to cleanliness issues or a lack of a sink and never heard anyone around ever having any issues. Yet many pathogens are spread via the fecal oral route. So I’ll take my chances of maybe having some of my urine vs having someone else shit on my hands everytime in that situation.

        • my_hat_stinks@programming.dev
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          4 months ago

          I’m not sure I follow your logic here. You believe you’ll come into contact with other people’s piss and shit less often when people don’t wash their hands?

          • єχтяαναgαηтєηzумє@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            Air hand driers cover your hands in other peoples fecal matter. That’s a massive biological risk, especially with how many pathogens are transmitted from poop to mouth. Using a urinal will most often result in no backsplash, keeping my hands pretty clean. To wash off that minor, if any, urine which got on my hands and end with others poop on my hands from the air drier has put me in a much worse position. That’s all I’m saying, is there’s 100% situations where washing you hands makes no sense after a piss. But it’s good practice for sure, unless an air drier is involved.

            • scutiger@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Using a urinal will most often result in no backsplash, keeping my hands pretty clean.

              Using a urinal definitely results in backsplash, and because your hands and body are right in front of it, there’s even less likelihood of avoiding it vs a toilet. Just because you don’t see or feel it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

    • snf@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      urine is sterile

      Not by the time it exits your body, no. Urine is sterile when it leaves the bladder, but it picks up bacteria on its way through the urethra

      • єχтяαναgαηтєηzумє@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        I told folks to start buying masks in March 2020 and found a new gig as the one I had didn’t enforce any mask requirements. But I’m also a backpacker who knows bacteria and the immune system pretty well. I don’t read much research on urine, so again, please forgive that oversight. But funny how people aren’t easily categorized, ah?

        • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          So you only trust science sometimes? There are contradictions on whether air dryers are more or less hygienic than paper towels. But there’s no contradictions on whether you should wash your hands.

          • єχтяαναgαηтєηzумє@lemm.ee
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            4 months ago

            This study from the American Society of Microbiology specifically demonstrates how air driers at least add 3 bacterial colonies, and up to 254 colonies, when using an air drier in a public restroom: https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/aem.00044-18. In addition, a Harvard review of the research also identifies that the chances of picking up a serious pathogen in the bathroom are quite small.

            So, having little chance in general yet using the air drier, which has shown to add bacteria to your hands in every single test, doesn’t make sense after understanding this data. I’m a man of science, and this involves assessing all available data regarding the topic at hand. This being the case, the data provided above highlights how just not touching your face and washing your hands at the next opportunity after leaving a bathroom with only hand driers is the most logical move. But to each their own, I know microbiologist and virologist who are much smarter than I that refuse to use air driers, so I took note and make moves accordingly.

            • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              There are two important quotes I would like to point out from that paper:

              It is certainly clear that hand washing can reduce the risk of infections (39). However, the deposition of potentially pathogenic bacteria on the hands after hand washing to remove transient floras reduces the effectiveness of hand washing

              Note the wording: “reduces effectiveness” means you should still do it, it is still effective, just less so.

              These results did not differ significantly from those for bacterial colonies deposited by hand dryers from the same bathrooms when calculations of the colonies deposited by hand dryers and small fans were corrected for the times for air exposure and rates of airflow from these two sources

              In other words: moving the air around is the cause, so a bathroom with paper towels that also has an air conditioner or fan will produce similar results. You know what else moves air around similar to a small fan? You when walking around, your hands are moving air and contacting lots of it.

              I could reply with a study that finds air dryers to be safer and filter more bacteria, and we could go back and forth until one of us grows tired. Instead I’ll leave you with a review of several papers published on the matter where you can see that it’s not so clear cut, there is discussion around it and it doesn’t help that the vast majority of papers out there are financed by either paper companies or air drying companies (btw, kudos for citing one of the independently financed studies)

              https://academic.oup.com/jambio/article/130/1/25/6726080

              If you don’t want to read this, the long story short is that we don’t have enough evidence to conclude whether they are more or less hygienic:

              The second question we sought to answer is ‘Are PT safer than hand dryers relative to human infection risks?’ We found no data to support any human health claims relative to hand dryers vs PT use.

              And finally I leave you with another quote from this paper:

              Of notable importance is the need to evaluate risks from hand‐drying activities in consideration of handwashing scenarios, given that the greatest uncertainty in hand contamination is associated with the handwashing method, and not the drying method.

              In short: not washing your hands is worse than any drying method.