With the inevitable increase in coronavirus cases, we have heard suggestions that schools may have to be closed (New cases raise fears virus spreading undetected in UK, 2 March). Surely one thing that the government could do before getting to the point of closing schools – with the negative knock-on effects of parents having to take time of work etc – would be to make arrangements for schools to have plentiful supplies of free alcohol-based hand sanitiser, soap, tissues and other cleaning products.

Austerity has seen schools openly begging parents for essential supplies such as toilet tissues, pens and writing paper. If the government funded these supplies, schools would be the ideal places to teach hand-washing and protocols for coughs and sneezes. This would be a great boost to containment and help prevent the spread of not just the coronavirus but many other common viruses and bacteria.

Dr James D Williams

Senior lecturer in education, University of Sussex

• We are advised to wash our hands regularly, not to touch our faces, and to cough or sneeze into our elbows, our hands or a paper tissue.

Washing our hands after sneezing into them may not always be feasible. While we do not yet know how long the virus can survive out of the body, I am unclear as to how effective sneezing into a clothed elbow will be other than as a good breeding place for the virus.

If we are to cough into a tissue and then discard it, where should that be? I would expect large numbers of potentially contaminated tissues to join the discarded coffee cups and other waste food containers that litter our streets or, perhaps, placed in overflowing waste bins in our cities.

It must be possible for our medical leaders to come up with better ways of controlling the spread of this virus.

Dr Michael Robert Martin

Retired GP, Devon

• The picture on your front cover (4 March), of a man hanging on to a rail in a train carriage with his whole arm, is the reason why I consider the advice to sneeze into the crook of your elbow to be actively harmful.

Catherine Rose

Olney, Buckinghamshire

• According to the World Health Organization and infection experts, banknotes are high-risk suspects in the spread of coronavirus (Six objects that can spread coronavirus, G2, 4 March). As an elderly, vulnerable category person, not at ease with “contactless payment options”, cash is my primary payment method. Hand-washing facilities are not always available, and avoiding instinctive touching of the face is not always avoidable at my age. So to help minimise the spread of the virus, am I supposed to use coins only? An alternative, I suppose, is to copy the Queen and wear disposable or washable gloves. Fine when you’ve got people at hand to fully take care of everything, but not practicable otherwise for my age group.

Jack Redfern

Congresbury, Somerset

• Harry Venning’s brilliant Clare in the Community cartoon on Wednesday summed up the weird hysteria around face masks so perfectly. Could we now perhaps have fewer photos of people on the tube with some sort of mask? I think we’ve all got the picture now.

Jonathan Harris

Royal Wootton Bassett

• Taking a comfort break at a motorway service station, I noticed that many men seem to have more faith in mobile phones as a guard against coronavirus spread than using a sanitiser or hand-washing (G2, 2 March). It seems almost common practice at the urinal to have equipment in one hand and mobile phone in the other. I thought that maybe they were carefully reading the advice on singing Happy Birthday twice, but then, with a shake and zip, a glance at the wash basin and a final look at the screen, out they went.

David Bricknell

Plymouth

• I say three Hail Marys while washing my hands. Hopefully that way both my physical and spiritual wellbeing is taken care of.

Jo Burden

Marlow, Buckinghamshire

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition