A new protective barrier to reduce the aerosol dispersion in dental clinics during Omicron Covid-19 pandemic - Letter to the editor

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by Fahsai

Dental professionals face high COVID-19 infection risk during routine care due to exposure to saliva, blood, and other body fluids, especially when sharp instruments and high-speed or ultrasonic devices generate aerosols. Standard daily protective equipment may be insufficient, as Omicron infections can be asymptomatic. A new, height-adjustable transparent tent barrier with side apertures for hands is proposed, designed to reduce aerosol dispersion while remaining practical, easy to assemble, and disposable to limit cross-contamination. Clinical adoption and testing by dentists support feasibility.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages2

Reading Time5 min

AccessFree to download

Letter to the editor

Purpose and background

Proposed protective barrier design

Practical use and clinical feedback

Supplementary data and references

. J Chin MedAssoc Letter to the editor A new protective barrier to reduce the aerosol dispersion in dental clinics during Omicron Covid-19 pandemic Wei-Chi Tenga, Ya-Chun Chub,c, Jen-Yu Tsengd,c, Hsien-Yung Laia,* aDepartment of Anesthesiology, Mennonite Christian Hospital, Hualien, Taiwan, ROC; bDepartment of Anesthesiology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; cNational Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, School of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; dDepartment of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC DEAR EDITOR, Dental professionals are exposed to very high risks of infection by Covid-19 during clinical work. Because the exposure to saliva, blood, and other body fluids combined with the handling of sharp instruments and procedures all generate aerosols. The use of high-speed handpieces and ultrasonic tips causes more aerosols of saliva particles, blood, and other fluids.1 Due to the above characteristics of dental procedures, standard protective equipment in daily clinical work may not be effective enough to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 virus, especially when Omicron virus cause the patients asymptomatic and ignore they are infected. There are several protection devices been developed for dental clinics includes aerosol box or shield.2,3 But most of them would hinder the way a lot of procedures that would be not practical for clinical use. Due to our previous rich experiences in protective barrier enclosure innovation4-6; thus, we design a new type of protective barrier especially suitable for dental procedures. A height-adjustable metal bracket with four wheels helps adjust the height of the table to the preference of operators and facilitates moving the transparent tent while necessary (Fig. 1) . We use transparent plastic drape covering the metal bracket to form a tent. There are apertures in each side of plastic drapein order for the entrance of the operator and assistants’ hands. This time we selected plastic drape but not previous acrylic material is because that in dental clinical procedures, most patients are wide awake, the solid acrylic aerosol box sometimes causes patient discomfort, especially when the patients are claustrophobia. The other benefit of this plastic tent is it is simple in design, easy to assemble, and disposable for one use, do not worry about the cross-contamination problem caused by disinfection. *Address correspondence. Dr. Hsien Yung Lai, Department of Anesthesiology, Christian Mennonite Hospital, 44, Ming-Churn Road, Hualien 970, Taiwan, ROC. [E-mail address: hamalai@yahoo.com.tw](E-mail address: hamalai@yahoo.com.tw) (H.-Y. Lai). Conflicts of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest related to the subject matter or materials discussed in this article. Journal of Chinese Medical Association. (2022) 85: 808-809. Received May 16, 2022; accepted May 24, 2022. doi: 10. 1097/JCMA.0000000000000754. Copyright © 2022, the Chinese Medical Association. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ([http://creativecommons.org/licenses/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/)[ ](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/)[by-nc-nd/4.0/](by-nc-nd/4.0/)) Although using any sort of barrier in a clinical procedure requires work style adjustment, this dental barrier has been tested and practiced by many dentists clinically, they consider this tent provides good protection for aerosol spread during procedures and interfere the service at an acceptable range. The demonstration of this barrier in clinical practice was provided in the Supplementary Appendix ([https://youtu.be/](https://youtu.be/)[ ](https://youtu.be/)PUThdS9lgZ8?t=5) . Fig. 1 Specification of the dental barrier, it is assembled easily with heightadjustable metal bracket with four wheels (A, B) . 808 [www.ejcma.org](www.ejcma.org)[ ](www.ejcma.org) Letter to the Editor. (

FAQs

Why are dental clinic procedures high risk for COVID-19 transmission?

Dental care involves exposure to saliva, blood, and other body fluids. Handling sharp instruments and using high-speed handpieces or ultrasonic tips generates aerosols, increasing infection risk.

What limitation affects standard protective equipment during the Omicron period?

Standard daily protective equipment may not be effective enough to prevent viral transmission. Omicron infections can be asymptomatic, so patients may not realize they are infected.

How does the proposed barrier work and what design features does it include?

The barrier uses a height-adjustable metal bracket with four wheels and a transparent plastic drape tent. Side apertures allow operator and assistant hand entry, aiming to reduce aerosol spread while enabling practical workflow and disposable use.

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by Fahsai