A dental conference in Vancouver, where a person tested positive for COVID-19, is interrupting dental services across BC including right here in Kamloops.
All non-essential treatments are being postponed until further notice with a lot of unknowns about when operations could restart as anyone attending that conference has been asked to self-quarantine.
Speaking on The Jeff Andreas Show, President of the Kamloops Dental Society Dr. David Ciriani is in self-isolation himself. He says when it was first released, it was one individual who had been to Germany who was on the trade show floor for two hours.
“From the Health Officer, the news was well it was very low risk. Now I got the news this morning there has been three confirmed cases coming out of the conference and the health office said there were probably other people at the convention who are infected. So, it’s really an unknown.”
Ciriani says it’s an unfortunate situation. ”
Disappointing that professionals would show up. Obviously they traveled to places that there was a risk and I am disappointing that they didn’t self-isolate, that they felt the need to still go.”
Ciriani says anyone who saw the dentist within the last week, he believes you should be just fine.
“I was just reading a research paper that came out of the international journal for oral science about the situation in China. What they found is basically what the Chinese dentists should have been doing is what we do in dental offices routinely. So, I think anyone that was in a dental office last week, I just want to assure them that they’re very safe.”
For those who have appointments coming up, Ciriani says he can’t speak for all offices, but a lot of the work is about rescheduling people.
“And we weren’t even re-scheduling because we don’t know how this is going to play out. We’e just putting them on a list to reschedule them once things calm down. No one wants to take the risk of accidentally infecting someone.
Close to 15,000 people attended the dental conference which took place from March 5-7.