I posted this in a dental discussion website:
(Dentists are not permitted to practice now in most states except for emergencies involving infection not responding to conventional antibiotics, extreme pain, and bleeding and airway issues. My profession is in a state of shock as most everyone else is. This will be the death knell for many dentists in terms of their businesses and professional offices.
I posted this in a large FB website of dental-industry individuals. )
I do not know if this has been covered here but has it occurred to anyone that since minimal dental procedures are being completed and billable...can you imagine the windfall to the insurance companies who haven’t had to pay a significant number of new claims in weeks now? Since many individual’s health insurance may be maintained, that means that the premium dollars are presently rolling in.
Now some of you will maintain that eventually all this work will be completed at great expense to the companies, the fact is that there are just a finite number of contact hours in any given practice and a six week hiatus, for the sake of argument, will not be “made up” by most smaller practices. Retail practices of course will hire more people and stay open 18 hours a day to produce, with day shift and swing shift in full operation.
There are many catastrophe-capitalists out there. The people charging $100 or more for a bottle of Purell a couple weeks ago are just amateurs. Of course the dental labs and yes, the supply companies are going to also “take it on the chin”. I’ve been in the business since 1979 and am shaking my head in. CombinAtion of disbelief....and yes, belief, because we always knew in the back of our minds that this was a possibility.
Beginning with Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague from 1915, through Stephen King’s The Stand, and of course The Andromeda Strain, Outbreak, and lesser films and TeeVee shows, we have always acknowledged this as a possibility. Well, it has arrived. And it is devastating...and unfortunately, going to get a lot worse. I for one listen carefully to the politicians and the scientists and conclude that it is all Happy Talk, a pablum served to the lay populace. You cannot make any sense of the serial lying from this so-called Administration, it is painful to watch. It’s as though a fair percentage of the people do not believe in the germ/viral theory of disease, and believe that prayer and wishful thinking will be sufficient.
I leave you with one observation: tonight “they” said that if they hadn’t practiced social distancing then two million would have died, so aren’t they doing a fantastic job, reducing it to no more than two hundred thousand so this is terrific news. First of all, this estimate of two hundred thousand is coming from the same people who said that we have fifteen cases which are going to go to zero in no time at all... a “miracle”. Then when it didn’t @exactly” work out that way, they’re complaining that they are being unfairly targeted for criticism.
No miracles here: as someone said: if you’re going to wear the crown of thorns, you have to also carry the Cross. We unfortunately are bearing the burden. And are going to be doing this for a very long time.
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