Local dentist, Dr. Soumi SenGupta said it is still safe to visit the dentist office despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
The dentist is seeking to allay the fears of people who think the intimate nature of dental procedures creates a higher risk for contracting the disease.
“Not a single office, not a single practice anywhere around the world that has reported a high incidence of COVID-19 or respiratory illness of any kind more in a dental environment than anywhere else”, SenGupta said on state media.
“It is now being stated, quite categorically, amongst the major dental institutions that other than within an OR, an operating room, within a hospital, the next safest place that you can possibly be is at a dentist, which seems counter intuitive’, he added.
Certain procedures done in a dental office using tools like high speed drills can create aerosols which is “rather like spraying water, or spraying anything and it causes the saliva in your mouth, the water that’s used to cool the drill to create this plume of mist”, the dentist explained.
He said this can travel through the room “next to my assistant, around my face and around the patient. Well, if that patient has a respiratory illness you would think that we would be very prone, you would think that the patient coming in after this patient would also be very prone, and then all of sudden you think oh my gosh, this is terrible”.
However, SenGupta said such procedures have been done by dentists and other doctors for many years without increasing the spread of diseases.
He said shields are worn “because when we are doing differed procedures, we don’t want this stuff in our faces even if it’s not infected”.
The dentist said surgeons “have been dealing with hepatitis, we’ve been dealing with flu, and rhinovirus and all sorts of different viruses many of them respiratory but we do not have any higher incidence than tv presenter for example.”
SenGupta assured there is a “capable bunch” of about 25 dentists in the country and “I have no doubt that every single one of them are wearing masks and gloves, wiping down everything.”
“This is what we do. This whole thing of masks and gloves and wiping surfaces. I go through and entire box of gloves every day of my life for the last 30 years. About 25 masks every single day. Our staff wipe down and clean every single surface before you walk in, before you sit down and immediately after you leave”, he said.
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