Well, it seems like eons ago when I wrote this previous blog post. In re-reading it, who would have thought we would end up where we are now.
A couple quick things to comment on. In a recent study, it was shown that the virus is not transmitted in tears. This study included only 17 people but was very well done—none of the 17 had traces of the virus in their tears. To be clear, you can still inoculate yourself through the mucous membranes of the eye, but new tears do not seem to shed virus as far as we currently know.
The second thing worth noting is that signs of conjunctivitis (or “pink eye”) associated with the virus remain very low, at about 1%.
In the office, we have installed breath shields on our microscopes and changed how we interact with patients to minimize the chance of contamination. We are fortunate that our office is not a place where sick people typically go, and we do not have the aerosol issues that our dental colleagues have to deal with. There is always some risk, and we will do our best to minimize and control those risks once we get back into the flow of taking care of our patients.
Dr. Jason
