At least one Prince George dentist is closing over COVID-19 concerns after a recent dental conference was linked to a number of new cases.
Family Dental Care’s Spruceland Office is temporarily closed as a majority of the staff attended a conference in Vancouver earlier this month.
There are 30 new cases of COVID-19 in the province, bringing the total number of cases up to 103, and a portion of those new cases are related to the two-day dental event.
Although the new cases are in the Vancouver Coastal, Fraser, Interior and Island health regions, B.C.’s provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says that a significant number of new cases are related to the Pacific Dental Conference 2020 held at the Vancouver Convention Centre on March 6 and 7, 2020.
“We are asking anyone who attended to self-isolate until March 22, 2020,” says Dr. Henry.
Although none of the staff reported feeling ill, as a precaution, the dental centre made this announcement on its Facebook page on Friday (March 13), three days before Dr. Henry’s recommendations asking anyone who attended to self-isolate.
At this time, attendees were only told to isolate if they were feeling ill.
“A majority of this team attended the Pacific Dental Conference. We have since learned that a Vancouver dentist who attended PDC, tested positive for COVID-19. As of today, NONE of our FDC dentists or staff have tested positive for COVID-19 and we’re told the risk to Conference attendees is “extremely low”, but in order to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff and patients, Spruceland FDC is currently closed,” reads the post.
According to the Pacific Dental Conference's website, over 14,000 people attended the event.
Henry also announced that they are recommending restricting events of more than 50 people, down 250 from the previous recommendation. All casinos have also been ordered to close and surgeries have been cancelled.
You can find more up-to-date local, national and global information, as well as resources on COVID-19 on PrinceGeorgeMatters' dedicated COVID-19 webpage.
