NMDA Journal Winter 2020-21

12 New Mexico Dental Journal, Winter 2020-21 N ew Mexico often seems immune to the natural disasters we too often see on TV. We witness the destruction from afar and feel sympathy for those experiencing it, but have you wondered what it feels like living on a sunny beach on the gulf coast watch- ing the news of impending disaster about to befall you. The satellite images show a swirling maelstrom coming your way, but it is over the horizon and it is such a beautiful Fall day. Then that first gust of wind causes you to pull your jacket a little tighter. Forty- eight hours later it is sunny again, but this time your life has been turned upside down. Your home or business has been destroyed. Perhaps a friend or loved one is gone for- ever. One can only imagine that it feels like slow motion until suddenly it’s over and all the pain and grief is all too real. The first reports of a novel coronavirus at the end of January, one year ago, felt sort of like that. Already some were talking about a global pandemic. That was not a foreign word to us. We heard it every few years and mostly that happened somewhere else. We’d “survived” them before like SARS and As practices closed last Spring due to the pandemic, HPI immediately began surveilling the impact on dentists and their practices. COVID by the Numbers