Fun with Covid-19 in Germany

[Guest]

During the shutdown I had a molar fracture. Wasn't serious and didn't expose the nerves, thank goodness, so that meant I could wait a while, but I scheduled a dental appointment as soon as the restrictions eased because it's a good idea to get these things fixed soonest. Last Monday (11 May) I went to the Zahnartzt in Frankfurt. The dental work was very fast; it took about 30 minutes and involved removing the old silver amalgam filling which had to be over 40 years old and replacing it with composite, expanding it somewhat to cover the fracture. According to the dentist, the molar is a poor candidate for a crown due to underlying bone loss. It's only this one and not others, and attributable to heredity. All happy.

Friday afternoon I get a call to come in for Covid-19 testing. Seems the dental assistant had  tested positive, so they were back-tracing everyone who had been in that office. I got swabbed. The results came back negative but the Bundesgesundheitsminister guidance is to self-isolate for two weeks following a potential exposure. So I have another week, which is fine because I wasn't going anywhere anyway.

After I passed a week with no symptoms I figured I was probably okay but we know that this damned bug is insidious. It's possible that we'll all get it at some point and the words "herd immunity" get batted about from time to time.

Moral: This occurred despite all the precautions. There are no magic bullets and no one is 100% safe. The only way to be 100% safe is to stay on the ground and not get in the plane, but that's not what you went to the dropzone for.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Guest