LEGAL ODONTOLOGY COLUMN – Legal implications for a patient who is aware he has COVID-19 and goes to the dental office

Vol. 12 – number 46 – 2021 LEGAL ODONTOLOGY COLUMN Page 8 Legal implications for a patient who is aware he has COVID-19 and goes to the dental office Prof. Roberley Araújo Assad – MSc PhD, Dental Surgeon CRO/PR-7497 – Graduation Professor and Coordinator of Post-Graduation in Orthodontics – Cescage/Ponta Grossa; – Graduation Professor and Coordinator of Post-Graduation in Orthodontics – Faculdade Herrero/Curitiba; – Post-graduation coordinator of Orthodontics, Soepar/Curitiba; – Post-graduation Professor of Orthodontics – Ioa/Avantis/Curitiba – Joinville/SC; – Graduating in Law – Dom Bosco/Curitiba; – Scientific Reviewer at Orthoscience. Unfortunately, there are still many people who are unaware of and incredulous about the risks of the dissemination and contagion of the pathogen that causes SARSCOV-19 (Acute Respiratory Syndrome caused by the new Coronavirus) and consider this disease harmless. In spite of several municipal and state laws enacted quickly for the moment of the situation we are going through, our Penal Code already foresaw this type of situation in its article 131, which reports the practice, in order to transmit to others a serious disease of which he is infected, an act capable of producing contagion with a prison sentence of 1 to 4 years and a fine. Therefore, in our already difficult working days, in which the dental surgeon is very exposed and takes every precaution with individual protection barriers, as well as biosafety, if you know that you have seen a patient who was diagnosed positive for COVID-19 (and this happened several times with our colleagues during the Pandemic), you can and should report it online, making an occurrence report through the Internet, which will give you the right to possible compensation in the future, if you have to take time off work to comply with quarantine. Barriers and biosafety reduce contagion to dental surgeons According to a consultation made by CFO (Conselho Federal de Odontologia) with 40 thousand dentists in Brazil, 82% continued their activities during the pandemic. The low degree of contamination among the professionals of the sector was another positive news. A CFO survey revealed that dentists had the lowest rate of infection among all health areas. In July, when the survey was carried out, they represented less than 0.2% of the infected in the country. According to the Ministry of Health, of the total number of deaths of health professionals up to that moment, less than 3% worked in dentistry. Moreover, for those who continued to work in emergencies, the danger of Covid-19 contamination was always imminent. Since oral fluids are among the regions of greatest adherence of the virus, the initial expectation will continue to be that dentists have the same rate of infection as frontline hospital staff, and the use of high rotation increases the risk of infection. During a dental procedure, our tool produces aerosols – which are microparticles of air that come out of the patient’s mouth and become suspended in the air or on objects. As we live in a pandemic, these microparticles can be loaded with COVID-19 and contaminate not only the practitioner, but also all the next patients. Therefore, let’s keep the general cleanliness and antisepsis of our working environment strict, because the patients’ eyes, which were already very critical since the times of AIDS/HIV, are much more so now, due to the way of transmission being much easier and faster. DOI: 10.24077/2021;1246-OL8 Soon available for download