Volume 8 • 2021 • Issue 1

Your COVID-19 Questions Answered Dr. Aaron Burry, leader of the CDA COVID-19 Response Team and CDA's Deputy CEO—Professional Affairs, answered questions in January about dentistry in the context of COVID. Q In many places in Canada, COVID infection rates rose at the end of 2020. What do you expect in the coming months? Dr. Aaron Burry (AB): The time between now and April is very unpredictable. Cases spiked significantly in advance of, during and following the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. I really hope that we start to see a downward trend, but that will likely require more restrictions on our day-to-day activities. Practising in this context is very challenging for dentists. In some places with lower infection rates, like in Atlantic Canada, contact tracing and screening are very useful tools. But in areas where rates are higher and there is significant community transmission, screening is no longer reliable and therefore we have to treat every patient as if they are COVID positive. In the community where I work, near Cornwall, Ontario, there were almost no cases on December 21, which was my last day of clinic before the holiday break. A couple of weeks later, there were 400 cases! Data and contract tracing suggests that these cases are arising primarily from household-to-household contact. We will need to continue the current clinic protocols for the foreseeable future, which is hard psychologically and physically. It's tough to work in “PPE battle gear” all the time. Q When do you think COVID vaccines will start to influence the national situation? AB: The federal government has begun the rollout but it's a relatively small and controlled amount of vaccine for the first three months, certainly until the end of March. The groups receiving it now are those living and working in long-term care and people working in hospitals, especially those likely to come in contact with COVID patients or as part of vaccination teams. We’ll see the pace fluctuate over the next few weeks as vaccine doses continue to arrive, but in less predictable patterns. When will dentists likely be able to get vaccinated? There’s been conversations in government about dentists being included in the group just after this first phase, so hopefully by the beginning of April. Of course, that will be influenced by local conditions; places with high rates of infection will likely be prioritized to receive vaccinations and be based on factors associated with higher risk and age considerations There are three questions to consider when figuring out vaccination priority. Where do you work? What are the COVID rates where you live? And what is your age and health status? The answers to these questions clarify the risk of COVID to you and to your community. Q Do we need a vaccination rate in the 70% range to beat COVID? AB: That depends who you talk to. COVID is different from other infectious diseases that we’ve used vaccinations for in the past. Measles is so highly transmissible that you need a percentage higher than 70% for effectiveness. And I’m concerned about new, more transmissible variants of COVID coming out of Dr. Aaron Burry 9 Issue 1 | 2021 | CDA at W ork