Terrible machines.
Since this pandemic, I've just stopped using them altogether.
And throwing away designs costs money. That’s why often it’s not until v2 or v3 of a product that they hit the right design. You often need the revenue from v1 and v2 to pay for more thrown away designs.
https://www.dyson.com/hand-dryers/dyson-airblade-wash-dry-ov...
Somehow none of the geniuses in the design world have criticised that the 331mph Air Blade dryer, when pointed at a concave surface, i.e. the sink, would spit things right back in the opposite direction.
I've used this faucet/dryer while transiting through Reykjavik and you can see the remaining soap lather blown from the sink drain up over the counter and onto my shirt (and everywhere else).
It's an expensively flawed idea.
They are the absolute worst. How anyone thought it was a good idea is beyond me.
For all new buildings or products, any surface which is touched by hundreds of people each day needs to be redesigned to be contactless or to use materials that minimize transmission; products like hand dryers should pass standards that measure whether they spread bacteria or viruses; buildings and public transportation (buses, trains and planes) need to use HEPA filters to reduce airborne transmission risks, and to filter out air pollution; and sinks for hand washing need to become a standard feature at office receptions or entrances/exits.
We should also be able to reduce the normally accepted steady state of deaths, ill health and economic impacts from flu and other unnecessary sickness.
But this is going to be more and more necessary as global disease transmission becomes easier. It could be a new strain of flu or a drug resistant TB next year. There has to be defence in depth and in advance, not just hoping always for a magic fix after the problem has occurred.
It turns out that copper can not only kill bacteria but also degrades naked dna/rna strands, preventing gene transfer between species. Problem is, the last time we were still using brass a lot, it was all lacquered in plastic.
Although, I imagine the liberal application of far-UVC lighting for free air antiseptic purposes in the loo might mitigate the issue to an extent.
https://www.self.com/story/people-who-attended-this-sexy-neo...
But to your point, the intake vents are mounted very low on the side, and I think I'd feel a lot better about recirculation if the intakes were farther above the outlets.