Is it just me? Or is it great to be able to gleefully open every window? Asks LIZ HOGGARD

  • Downing Street urged people to keep windows open to stop spread of Covid
  • Short, sharp bursts of air for 10-15 minutes could dispel droplets of the virus
  • Here, Liz Hoggard explains why this comes as welcome advice for many 

Each day I fling open my windows and back door to ventilate my flat and feel a thrill. Like most midlife women, there is always a window somewhere that I urgently need to open.

We 50-somethings need generous air con and often look on in puzzlement as colleagues in their 30s and 40s pile on coats and scarves to cope with the chill.

Usually I end up feeling like a middle-aged cliche.

But not any more. This winter, Downing Street has urged people to keep their windows open to cut the risk of spreading coronavirus, especially if they have visitors (cleaners, builders and, maybe, beloved friends again). We're even allowed to have the heating on with the back door open.

Downing Street has urged people to keep windows open to stop spread of Covid and it comes as welcome advice for many (stock image)

Downing Street has urged people to keep windows open to stop spread of Covid and it comes as welcome advice for many (stock image)

According to the Government's scientific advisers, short, sharp bursts of air for 10-15 minutes every couple of hours, even leaving windows cracked open, could dispel droplets of the virus.

And frankly, I couldn't be happier. I was always a hot child, sweating in hand-me-down jumpers, then as a teenager in the 1970s, my father became so incensed by my fresh air habit that he nailed my bedroom window shut with a hammer to cut the fuel bills.

On long family car journeys I would beg to wind down a window.

According to the Government's scientific advisers, short, sharp bursts of air for 10-15 minutes every couple of hours, even leaving windows cracked open, could dispel droplets of the virus (stock image)

According to the Government's scientific advisers, short, sharp bursts of air for 10-15 minutes every couple of hours, even leaving windows cracked open, could dispel droplets of the virus (stock image)

Today I live in summer dresses with bare legs, the back door propped open so I can appreciate the garden. One friend refuses to visit me after mid-October.

But now everything has changed for midlife menopausal women.

Flinging windows open is a life-saving act. We're the White Helmets of fresh air, waging war on the virus. Laugh at your peril.

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