Yesterday I went south of P St. NW. for the first time in sixth months. The occasion was a visit to the dentist, scheduled right before the quarantine. A dentist's office sounds like the perfect place to spread airborne viruses, given that the patients have their mouths wide open, and often enough spraying out aerosols as high-speed tools clean, polish or drill. On the other hand, it is well to make a visit, and who can say that the winter will be a better time?
Downtown is relatively empty. There are people on the sidewalks and parks, just not that many. Windows are boarded up on the two blocks that border 16th St. NW immediately north of Lafayette Square, but from 17th St. west I saw no more plywood. Some businesses that are in operation had closed early. After the appointment, I noticed that Second Story Books had closed much earlier also.
The receptionist at the dentist's office took my temperature with a sensor that operates from six inches or so. Given that it showed my temperature as 97 F, I wonder how accurately it detects fevers. She next had me clean my hands with hand-sanitizer, then put on latex gloves. I kept my mask on until I was in the hygienist's room.
The cleaning was different in three ways:
- I declined the dark glasses, preferring to keep my own on.
- The procedure did not end with polishing, something I can certainly understand.
- Before the hygienist went to work with the high-speed tool, she brought in a device meant to capture aerosols. She warned me that it was loud, so I waited for the sound with some interest. I thought it about equivalent to sitting in a window seat near the wing when an airliner is taking off.
After I broke a tooth early in the summer, I became the first patient on the first day our local dentists' office reopened with the new safety procedures. Communicating through the layers of protection was a challenge for the dentist and the hygienist, but the toughest change for me to deal with as a patient was the new formality, so atypical of a small town. In the past I've been in the office when locals stopped by on unrelated business, like a farmer last year who delivered a basket of pawpaws from his orchard. I hadn't previously thought of a dentists' office as a community hub, but I look forward to the day when it will be again.
ReplyDeleteI have certainly never thought of a dentists' office as a community hub. But then I haven't lived in a small town. It is an interesting notion.
DeleteInterestingly, the dentists' office is also the site of the drop-off box for our local food pantry. One of the two dentists built the box himself--it's like a little barn with a latch on the door. He and his wife, our other dentist, were the grand marshals in the annual town parade four years ago. Twenty years of city life didn't prepare me for the neighborliness of small-town life.
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