Impact of mandatory vaccination on dental services

Eddie tells Mike that he has had both of his vaccinations and his booster – having done so at the earliest opportunity. However, he explains, “Many of my colleagues don’t think, working in the situations that they’re working in at the moment, with such heavy PPE that we wear in dental practices, and it being a very safe place to deliver care, and also talking lateral flow tests many times a week – they’re fairly confident that they’re not carrying covid at a particular time, so they don’t see the need for being mandatorily vaccinated.”

Mike then asks Eddie what sort of effect he think this could have on the dental sector, with a suspected 10 per cent of dental workers not vaccinated. He prompts, “That doesn’t sound like a big amount, but it’s quite a big number when you consider people working in different situations, holiday cover and that kind of thing – how difficult will it be to recruit replacements?”