Greetings to all patients, parents, and friends of OASECT!
Spring is in the air, and we’re all looking forward to getting the season of COVID-19 behind us. We are SO APPRECIATIVE for the ongoing support, confidence, and understanding that so many of our patient families have shown us over this most trying year. It is hard to believe that it has been almost a year since we made the difficult decision last March 16 to close the office temporarily due to COVID concerns.
While it appears that the worst is behind us, with more and more of our local residents receiving vaccines each day, we are not yet out of the woods. We plan to continue our office mitigation strategies well into the future, as directed by the Connecticut Department of Health. We are still seeing fewer patients per day than in “normal” times, we are continually running our hospital-grade air purifiers, the temporary barriers will remain, and all patients, parents, and staff must continue to wear masks whenever they are in the office. Well, except when in the treatment chair, of course! We are increasing our use of virtual visits whenever this is appropriate and effective.
Starting this week, we are inviting our parents back into the reception areas to wait for their children during their appointments, as desired. A maximum of four parents may sit in the reception area at one time, and only in the socially distanced seating areas. We have worked hard to keep our families updated on treatment progress via post-visit phone calls, but we know that nothing is as good as frequent face-to-face updates. We are trying to resume this standard as much as possible, while still limiting the number of people in the office.
We are still required to conduct a COVID health screening for each and every visit. We understand that this is a significant inconvenience, but it remains a necessary one. With this in mind, we know that many of our patient families are planning to travel out of state in the near future. We fully understand that, but we must remind you of the COVID testing and/or quarantining requirements that remain in place in the state of Connecticut upon your return. Yes, even if you’ve had the vaccine, as almost everyone in our office has. We are constantly checking for updates, but as of this time, the most recent Travel Advisory is from Jan 21. Here is the link, for your convenience:
https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/Coronavirus/20210120-DPH-Travel-Advisory.pdf
In closing, we THANK YOU for helping us through this most challenging year, and we look forward to seeing everyone’s smiles again whenever when you come into our offices. We know those smiles have been there under your masks this whole year!
Sincerely,
Dr. James O’Leary, Dr. Gregory Hack, and the entire OASECT team.
