Interviewer: Is it safe to go to the dentist? Dr. Rory Hume is the Dean of University of Utah School of Dentistry. What precautions are dentists taking against COVID-19?
Dr. Hume: The standard precautions that we've used in dentistry for quite a while appeared to be effective in preventing infection within the dental setting. In the few months after the pandemic began, the American Dental Association, the Center for Disease Control started to look at all of this carefully and put out guidelines, and there are now very good guidelines for safety within dental practice.
Interviewer: So going to the dentist, very low risk, but maybe I should still just put it off to be safe. What do you think?
Dr. Hume: We don't know how long this is going to go on for. So it's better for you to have your routine dental care and stay healthy than to get into trouble and to need something in a more major way.
updated: February 17, 2021
originally published: August 14, 2020
