Your dental team here at Lake Baldwin Dental is thrilled at the glimmer of light at the end of the long, dark COVID tunnel: coronavirus vaccination. As dental clinicians, we have been one of the highest risk groups for contracting COVID since the beginning of the pandemic.
The entire dental industry has gone above and beyond all year to keep ourselves and our patients as safe as possible. And it has worked! Soon, we will have one more weapon in our arsenal to combat this outbreak. Vaccines!
Vaccines in Dentistry
The US Board of Dentistry requires certain immunizations for dental clinicians. These include Hepatitis B and Measles, Mumps, Rubella, as well as Tdap. We are also strongly encouraged to get our flu shot every year.
While these shots protect us as clinicians, they also help protect our patients. We do everything in our power to keep from becoming carriers for serious illnesses.
Where We Stand with the COVID Vaccine
While there is currently no legal requirement for dental staff to get the COVID vaccination, your dental team at Lake Baldwin Dental are strongly encouraged to get the shot as soon as it is feasible for them to do so. Several of our team members have already completed both doses of the vaccine. Which is a great relief for us and our families!
It is very likely that the COVID vaccine will help to prevent an immunized person from spreading the novel coronavirus. However, there is currently no available data as to whether or not vaccinated individuals can still pass the virus to others.
Our New Protocols Will Not Change for Now.
For this reason, we will still be wearing all that extra protective equipment you may have seen in the past year, as described in this previous post. We are following all the most current CDC guideline (and then some) to minimize the chances of exposing patients to the virus in our office.
And even though many of our team members are immunized, most of our patients cannot yet access the shot. So, we are still operating under the assumption that our patients are not vaccinated and must be protected at the highest possible standard.
Plus, it’s not like our Surgically Clean Air or HALO systems are going anywhere! Even without the virus to contend with, we are proud that Lake Baldwin Dental will still have the cleanest air around.
As much as we all look forward to COVID being in our rear-view mirror, there is still a ways to go before the vaccine is accessible to everyone. So, while we are incredibly grateful that our team has started to get vaccinated, we will keep working as hard as we can to keep our patients safe. Keep smiling and stay safe, Orlando!
