| This afternoon, April 22, 2020, Governor Ducey issued Executive Order 2020-32, providing that “hospitals and healthcare providers [including dental surgery providers] that have sufficient supplies of PPE, available capacity within their hospital, ability to test pre-operative patients and at-risk healthcare workers for COVID-19, and ability to protect their vulnerable patients should be able to resume elective, non-essential surgeries [on May 1] if they can demonstrate they can continue to meet criteria related to PPE, bed capacity, testing and precautions.” The entire order can be found at https://azgovernor.gov/sites/default/files/eo_2020-32_elective_surgeries.pdf. Although the Governor’s Order indicates dentists can “resume elective, non-essential surgeries” starting Friday, May 1, we also recognize that the Order has various criteria that seem difficult for dentists to satisfy and/or would only seem to apply to hospitals and/or healthcare facilities. Given these concerns, your AzDA is already reaching out to the Governor’s Office and Arizona Department of Health Services to get clarification on how the Order applies to dentists and their practices.
We hope to have this clarification as soon as possible, given the May 1 date. Until we have an update, please be patient as we work with the Governor’s Office and Arizona Department of Health Services to provide you the information as soon as possible. In the meantime, and since the Order requires that a dentist have a “continuing supply of PPE that will support the … provider [i.e. dentist and staff] for more than 14 days and that is not reliant on state or a county health department;” we recommend dentists secure PPE as soon as possible. The Arizona Department of Health Services has published the following information about PPE. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has also put out information about PPE. Earlier this week the American Dental Association (ADA) also put out interim guidance and information on PPE If you are looking for PPE, yesterday and today AzDA Perks Supplies advertised available PPE for AzDA members at https://azdaperkssupplies.com. Thank you for AzDA Membership, and again we will be sharing more information with members as soon as it becomes available. | 
