I find there’s three types of hand dryers: the standard kind that blows really hot air to evaporate the water, the ones that blow strongly to push the water off the hands, and the ones that are supposed to do one of these but don’t. At my university almost all of the hand dryers fall into the third category.
Why are hand dryers like this, and am I somehow drying my hands wrong?
Given the issue is fixed by putting HEPA filters on the intake of the dryers, it indicates the bacteria is coming from the air in the bathroom, not wet hands.
Here some sources about different systems and causes. Anyway , I always use paper ;-) https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823 And https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/25/hand-dryers-paper-towels-hygiene-dyson-airblade
That Harvard article is what I linked above. It’s where I found that the HEPA filter on the intake works well to reduce bacterial spread.
You can’t expect me to read all the answers in a tread hehehe.
You gave the article a good and proper skim reading! Anything more in-depth is overkill. You got the gist of it that’s enough lol