Volume 7 • 2020 • Issue 6

Your COVID-19 Questions Answered Dr. Aaron Burry, leader of the CDACOVID-19 Response Team, public health specialist and associate director of Professional Affairs at CDA, answered some questions in early September about dentists working effectively in the context of COVID-19. Q What will the onset of cold and flu season mean for COVID screening and management in the dental office? Dr. Aaron Burry (AB): I’m hopeful that cold and flu season could potentially be less severe this year as we all try to maintain social distancing and increase mask use in general. The current protocols we have in place should not only prevent the transmission of COVID but also other respiratory diseases, like influenza. We know, for example, that outbreaks related to other common diseases (like flu) declined significantly in long-term care facilities once stringent infection control measures were brought into place. That said, getting flu shots are critical. We all need to protect each other and ourselves. The bottom line for dental offices is that we must take all the precautions that we can. If someone has cold or flu symptoms, we won’t bring them into the office. This year, it’s about reducing the transmission of all respiratory illnesses because we want to help reduce the strain on the health care system. Q Is there any new science about aerosols that might be useful for dentists? AB: External high-volume suction is an excellent tool for controlling aerosols. What we need is a way to reduce the generation of aerosols at source. Recently, there was an interview on CDA Oasis* about work by Dr. Alexander Yarin, professor at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His team came up with a novel approach that alters the physical response of water to the rotary and ultrasonic forces that are used in dentistry. Adding a common food additive to the water supply of a high-speed headpiece suppresses the generation of aerosols. There are few new ideas that are coming down the pipe that look encouraging. Q Is there any news about rapid testing that you feel hopeful about? AB: The reliability of testing has been disappointing. Problems with false negatives and false positives mean that currently a single sample is tested twice using different approaches to confirm the results. Testing is being ramped up and it is available in more places across Canada than in the spring. Right now, as infection rates are very low in Canada, widespread testing isn’t as useful in determining the Dr. Aaron Burry * Visit CDA Oasis to watch the video on aerosol suppression: bit.ly/2FtCHwP 13 Issue 6 | 2020 | CDA at W ork