Imagine this: you’ve an extremely bad toothache that affected both your sleep and your mood. You went to the dentist in end-March and was told that you need a root canal, whereby the dentist would open up your tooth, remove the infected pulp and nerves in the affected tooth and then sealed it up.
You’re told to go back to the dentist after two to three weeks to install a crown (kind of like a protective area), as there’s need to check if there would be any complications from the procedure. During this period, you can’t eat hard food like biscuits or fried stuff because your tooth will be weaker than usual, and without a crown, you can fracture your tooth.
So you went home happily, but PM Lee suddenly appeared on TV.
Dental clinics are still open, but it’s only for essential services: installation of crowns isn’t considered essential.
That means for a month, you can only have porridge, Maggi Mee and…milk.
Sucks to be you.
And on 21 April 2020, PM Lee appeared again, and you immediately lost 5kg since you had your root canal.
Now you understand how the headline comes about.
Many Hair Salons & Dental Clinics Already Fully Booked in Whole of June
According to CNA, even before Circuit Breaker ends, people have already booked all the available slots in a dental clinic for the entire month of June.
On Phase One, dental clinic can resume the provision of ongoing dental procedures with guidance to minimise aerosol generation.
Dentists usually use these high-tech scary thingy that spray water or coke or whatever, so they’d have to be careful about it:
But other than that, they can install the crown you’ve been waiting for so that you can finally have the new Zinger Double Down burger.
The other shop that’s set to be fully booked come Phase One?
Hair salons.
Just like dental clinics, they had been allowed to open during Circuit Breaker period but only for haircuts—that’s, according to my influencer friend Ah Hock, not as essential as dyeing your hair.
A hair salon had 100 people booking appointments even before Phase One begins.
But here’s the tricky part.
Shops Implementing Safe-Distancing Measures Lead to Backlogs
In 2019, your typical hair salons could be packed with many David Gans chit-chatting with customers and even the customers’ friends.
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With safe-distancing measures, all the shops have to limit the number of customers or patients, and because there’s also a need to disinfect the area that a customer has been to, they would be serving fewer people given any normal days.
Some of these shops got creative by talking to their customers or patients via video calls before the appointment so that the time spent in the shop can be shortened.
So if you’ve a toothache and intend to walk into a dental clinic next Tuesday, don’t bother.
Pick up your phone and make an appointment first.
