Dentists Willing To Help Administer COVID-19 Vaccine
HANOVER (CBS) - With three pharmaceutical giants set to roll out COVID-19 vaccines, the question becomes how do you administer shots to everyone who wants one. There are more than 328 million people in the United States alone.
The answer may lie with dentists and eye doctors. "I must do 50 to a 100 shots a day, so that's second nature to us," said Dr. Peter Kulka of Hanover.
Dentists say with a minimum of training, how to store the vaccines, and how to handle the paperwork, they could take some of the load off of hospitals and clinics.
"We are going to be vaccinating people at the same time the crisis is booming," said Dr. Miguel Ortiz of Wayland. "So it's not like the health care centers are going to have any separate room or time to do what needs to be done."
In Ortiz's dental office, there are negative pressure rooms to stop the spread of the virus. He said every dentist in the country should jump in and help vaccinate the public.
"So we know how to deal with patients, we definitely know how to give shots, and if there's any special instructions that the vaccines are going to have, I'm pretty sure we can be trained," Ortiz said.
"The president-elect made a call to all of us as private citizens, to pitch in to get rid of this thing," Dr. Kulka added. "And this is definitely one thing that we can do as private business owners."
