Ebook: Dental Update – October 2020 Volume 47 . Number 9

DU ISSN 0305-5000

In the background of the coronavirus pandemic, which puts little other than life and death
into perspective, it is not easy to see beyond the current crisis. Dentists in the UK, and
many worldwide, are facing financial and clinical difficulties which could never have been
foreseen. In that regard, dentists in much of the rest of the world seem to be managing to
run their dental surgeries without the untested demands that we see in the UK.
In recent issues, Dental Update has brought readers many articles on COVID-19
and its implications for the dental team and their patients. However, there will be a time
when dentists and their patients will again worry about how long the restorations placed
in their teeth will last, rather than worrying about the implications of COVID-19 on their
treatment. Dental Update will therefore plan largely to return to its raison d’etre of bringing
high quality, well-illustrated articles of relevance to general dentistry and publishing
fewer articles solely related to COVID-19, albeit with the rider that, should we receive
an important COVID-related paper, it will be published, and we will continue to publish
Professor Samaranayake’s most useful COVID-19 Commentary for as long as he considers it
relevant.
Is it too soon to discuss whether anything good has come from the pandemic?
Perhaps, but there are some initiatives which are worthy of mention, namely:
???? British Airways’ new disembarkation by row number is one, as it removes the scrum which occurred when the seat belt sign
was turned off.
???? Many former commuters will be
more relaxed while working from
home, rather than standing on a
crowded train for hours. In this
regard, European data suggest that
three-quarters of jobs in the highest
paid quartile can be done remotely,
compared with only 3% in the lowest
quartile. Indeed, is working from home
a privilege confined to the well paid?1 It
is something that dentists will never be
able to do!
???? Bob Dylan released, on his YouTube
channel on 27 March 2020, his 17
minute epic ‘Murder Most Foul’
(which addresses the assassination
of President John F Kennedy in 1963)
as a gift to his fans. A variety of
commentators have seen the release
and content of the song directly
related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rolling Stone deputy editor2 praised the
release, stating that the song ‘is really
about the ways that music can comfort
us in times of national trauma’.
In clinical matters, the
following are among the initiatives
worthy of mention:
???? Remote diagnosis, as discussed in
recent issues of Dental Update, has
reduced travelling for patients.
???? Minimally invasive dentistry is a
certain winner, as clinicians increasingly
search for ways of treating their
patients without the need for an
Aerosol Generating Procedure.
???? Prevention is more important now
than ever.
I like growing flowers. At the
beginning of May each year, I plant begonia
tubers. This year was not an exception, and
the blooms have been as good as ever!
Perhaps, recent events should prompt us
to remember the simple pleasures that
COVID-19 cannot remove and draw comfort
from them, such as presented here. For the
begonias (illustrated here and overleaf ),
it would be the end of everything if they
ceased blooming. John Lennon is widely
attributed to be the author of the comment
‘Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s
not okay, it’s not the end’. In that regard,
the new normal is not normal, and, as
Cynthia Gorney3 put it – ‘In perilous times,
our deepest human impulse is to draw
close to each other − the very thing we’ve
been told not to do’. As I write, lockdown
restrictions are increasing in the UK and,
more stringently, in Birmingham. These
are necessary evils when we might want
to draw close to each other. The future
has always been uncertain, but is more
uncertain now. Nevertheless, there remains
hope that we will begin to adapt to the
new normal − for as long as it takes