I have an appointment to go to the dental clinic tomorrow for a cleaning. I was originally scheduled for a cleaning in April but of course, that could not happen as dental clinics in this province were closed at that time.
Local clinics opened back up many weeks ago but I decided to wait to see if it was safe to go. I guess I’m not ashamed to say that I was willing to see if the initial batch of returning patients encountered any difficulties from an epidemiological standpoint. I didn’t see any evidence of this after more than a month, so I felt somewhat ok to book an appointment.
Of course, less than a day until my appointment tomorrow, the World Health Organization released new guidance today on dental health. In summary, WHO is now recommending that people “delay routine, non-essential oral health care”, which includes checkups and dental cleaning. This is exactly the type of procedure I am partaking in tomorrow.
I have two options for tomorrow: one is to cancel the appointment and incur a financial penalty for cancelling less than 48 hours from an appointment or I could just hope for the best and go through with my appointment. In this province, there have been no documented cases where someone got sick from a visit to a dental clinic. On the other hand, it’s not difficult to see why the WHO deems dental clinics to be a higher risk place to be.
Life was never easy but it seems like even the most mundane things now are much tougher to get through.