Article Details

The CDPH now recommends that vaccinated workers in high-risk settings be tested for COVID-19 immediately following a “close-contact” exposure and again three to five days after the exposure. The final version of the Cal/OSHA COVID-19 ETS will take effect May 7 and end Dec. 31, 2022.

Updated mask guidance from the California Department of Public Health, effective March 1, very clearly states that face masks are still required for everyone, regardless of vaccination status, in specified high-risk settings, which include dental offices and all other health care settings.

Dentists and other health care providers who received one or more general or targeted Provider Relief Fund payments exceeding $10K in total July-December 2020 must report on the use of those funds during reporting period 2, which ends March 31.

When performing or involved with aerosol-generating procedures (open suctioning of airways, sputum induction and others), dental health care personnel should continue to wear NIOSH-approved N95, N95-equivalent or higher-level respirators. 
 

The universal face-mask mandate will end Feb. 16 for most vaccinated Californians in public indoor settings, including restaurants and entertainment venues, but masks will continue to be required for all individuals in dental and medical offices and other specified settings.
 

Beginning Feb. 19, employers in California with more than 25 employees must provide up to 80 hours of COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave to full-time employees who are unable to work or telework for qualifying reasons related to COVID-19.

The February 2022 issue of the Journal of the California Dental Association features articles on how dentistry has responded and adapted to the “new normal” of living and practicing with COVID-19, with the expectation that SARS-CoV-2 will eventually become endemic. 

Every residential address in the U.S. can now order a third set of free at-home COVID-19 tests through the federal government.The free tests present an opportunity for California dentists who are complying with the state’s vaccinate-or-test mandate that has been in force since Aug. 23, 2021.

The U.S. Supreme Court last week blocked one federal vaccination mandate for larger employers and upheld another for specified workers nationwide. But regardless of enforceability, the federal rules apply to very few California dental practices, which instead must comply with the stricter state or local vaccination mandate.