Volume 8 • 2021 • Issue 2

Dentists can play a key role in addressing concerns and building trust to support the vaccine rollout. We should make ourselves available to our staff to answer any questions or concerns they may have to help them make informed decisions. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official policies of the Canadian Dental Association. Q What is your clinical work like these days? AB: Yesterday, my team and I worked through seven urgent and emergency referred cases, back-to-back. We didn't take breaks in between. The area where I practice in Cornwall, Ontario, is a red zone and has a proportionally high number of COVID cases for a relatively small community, mostly of the new variants. Our patients are often from vulnerable groups, including people who live in group settings, such as long-term care (LTC) facilities, that are experiencing outbreaks or their residents have only very recently been vaccinated. At this point, the team is wearing N95s because we cannot fully rely on prescreening. Seven hours in a N95 is not a pleasant experience and patients have a hard time hearing what we are saying! I was refitted for yet another N95-type respirator from a different manufacturer because the supply is being exhausted. It was quite a detailed process and it took two hours to do the testing to make sure I could pass the evaluation successfully. Psychologically, after a year of all of this, and moving from higher to lower restrictions and back again, my whole team just wants to know when this is going to end and establish something we hope is closer to a new normal! Q Have you been able to get vaccinated? AB: Not yet. Many dentists in Cornwall were vaccinated recently because it’s a red zone, but I live in Ottawa so I wasn’t included in that group. Dentists and other health care workers here were just made eligible for pre- registration for vaccination, so I’m on that list. I’m excited to get my vaccine. Vaccines are what will free us from living in isolation. None of us thrive in isolation; we're very sociable creatures. Of course, we all have to remember that vaccines are only one layer of protection against COVID, so I’ll keep up other measures to keep myself and the people I know safe. Vaccinated people can still get COVID but from what I see from several reports is they’ll only have mild symptoms and avoid serious illness and hospitalization. The vaccine is about managing the disease. There are still questions about how effectively vaccination will prevent transmission of COVID, but research from Israel suggests that vaccination will substantially reduce it. Q What can we do to decrease any “vaccine hesitancy” that our staff or patients might have? AB: Dentists can play a key role in addressing concerns and building trust to support the vaccine rollout. We should make ourselves available to our staff to answer any questions or concerns they may have to help them make informed decisions about the vaccine. Some patients might also look to us for vaccine information, so it would be good to be prepared with up-to-date information for such conversations. You could also remind people that researchers have been working on vaccines for the coronavirus family of viruses for more than 30 years, so they didn’t have to start from scratch on these new COVID vaccines. They just went quicker this time because of the consolidated worldwide effort with unprecedented funding from government and industry. And finally, once you receive the vaccine yourself, sharing your personal experience with your staff and patients might also be helpful to ease any fears or concerns they may have. Q What do you imagine will be some of the lasting effects of the pandemic? AB: A childhood memory that has come up many times this year is my mother complaining that my father, who was also a dentist, seemed to bring home every cold or flu and share it with the entire family. As a society, we used to accept that such illnesses were inevitable between November and April. Usually by March, I would’ve had at least one head cold, if not a few, picking up a bug at work, the gym, or just going about my regular life. But this year, I’ve felt really healthy. No sniffles, aches or pains, not even once! The pandemic has shown that it’s possible to prevent virus transmission and I think we have an opportunity to rethink what we’re willing to accept or not. As dentists, I think we are going to use the lessons of the pandemic to look at how to better protect ourselves from threats to our lung health, viruses or other dangers that are now more obvious. We are more aware of why air quality is so important, and we know more about how to achieve it with ventilation, filtration and specific PPE. 12 | 2021 | Issue 2 CDA at W ork