May 27, 2020
Dear patient,
Only sixty plus days have passed since my first letter to you. It sure seems long ago, doesn’t it? Many things have moved forward so it is important to review with you what we’ve done and are planning as we all move forward in the presence of this wicked virus.
My team here at Swiss Dental Center has been awesome in adapting to the many necessary changes here that caused personal angst as it has for us all. We are continually working toward as little disruption as possible to your care and scheduling what is best.
During these past two months, many of you have had your appointments rescheduled to accommodate the urgent and emergency needs of some while we all tried to make sense of the numbers of emerging sick people in our area. We thank you for stepping back without any complaint as we’ve assessed what and how we do things for your safety and ours, as well.
It’s important to note that CV19 virus is clearly still with us all, but we’ve learned many things about managing our exposure to it and also, subsequent treatments. So far as I know, no patient or family member of ours has contracted it. And, we have all been tested for antibodies, to determine if anyone has been exposed enough to develop any immunity. We clearly realize now that other than hiding out, social-distancing, masks, and limited exposure to confined spaces is key to containing the spread of this infection.
As you can see, in dentistry it is impossible to maintain distance, so we must make sure that we and you are healthy. The good news is that testing for both antigens (nasal swab & saliva) and antibodies (finger prick and serology, both referring to blood) are now available and are having more access each day, some now without a doctor referral. Some are free, some are not, but they’re here, thank goodness. Some must be in an approved laboratory, some not. Antibody testing was first available in SLO at WestPac on April 1st and SDC immediately got tested and started sending all our patients there or Quest Diagnostics.
We are the first dental office in California to be able to have a finger-prick antibody test that appear to have the same reliability (or lack of) as the serology lab test and we have the results in 10 minutes. The bad news is that we had to buy them and need to pass along the cost to you. All tests at this moment are FDA cleared, not ‘approved’ as per the regular routes, since this is an urgent situation. (EUA-emergency use approval)
Many of you know about this, but to provide clarity to our process, I’ll explain:
The virus itself is the antigen. If you feel sick or have symptoms (listed separately, as I think you know about them), then these antigen tests are the first choice. We do not offer a swab test at SDC, because it creates possible unnecessary exposure for us, if you tested positive, meaning you are infected. There are now many sites where you can get this done for free. We soon will have the saliva test at SDC that allows us to separate from you keeping us safe, while helping you. We do not know about the cost yet.
Your immune system activates a defense against the virus antigens by making antibodies that fight a new exposure of the virus. These start to appear in your blood at 2-10 days. You may have been exposed and did not know it because you were never or slightly sick. If you self quarantine/isolate yourself for 14 days, have not been sick and test either positive and have some immunity or negative meaning no exposure, you are a well person that we treat with our normal office procedures. So we have you get the laboratory test (WestPac, Quest, and others) or at SDC.
A positive antibody test is a plus, because you now need not worry about being around infected people or wear a mask. Also, you might be a donor for someone sick enough to need help from this. A negative test means you do not have any resistance, but are not sick, so both are good. So testing is our key to moving forward with normal dentistry in a sane environment!
Mel and Tina are carefully scheduling your appointments with a staggered schedule to minimize contacts with others and a bit of extra time. We may be fine-tuning the actual time the day before or as the day progresses to minimize waiting. We will continue asking you about your exposures to outsiders, travel, and symptoms. We encourage you to bring only others that you feel are needed to participate with your appointment. Any person accompanying will need to be tested. Please have them wear a mask, but no worries if you forget because we have them here.
Please bring your own reading materials since we are discouraging hand contact. And, we will continue asking you to wash your hands and face with our betadine scrub. Thank you for your past and future teamwork.
Moving forward, safely—
Dr. Carol Phillips
