At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many dental clinics faced temporary closure or capacity restrictions due to what was believed to be an increased risk associated with aerosol procedures. Because dental procedures require clinicians to be in close proximity to their patient’s mouth and nose, practicing dentistry was considered to be a high risk for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection. A new paper “Evaluation of Comprehensive COVID-19 Testing Program outcomes in a US Dental Clinical Care Academic Setting” published in JAMA Network Open reveals that in fact clinical activities did not increase the risk of COVID-19 when performed in a clinical care setting with practitioners wearing standard personal protective equipment and participating in comprehensive SARS-CoV-2 surveillance testing.
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