Dentists in Albuquerque, N.M., are claiming the cost of certain products used at their practices have increased between 25 percent to 50 percent since the coronavirus outbreak went global, according to local news station KOAT.
Jesse Varoz, DDS, works at Dental Care on San Antonio. He says that with growing concerns of coronavirus, there have been barriers on purchasing plastic covers for dental chairs, masks and other local anesthetics.
Besides just the increase in price, dentists claim that there have been limits on the amount of supplies they can purchase, particularly for masks.
"They are rationing them in a sense where they are only letting us use, or order a few at a time, where before we could do countless amounts, of cases of them," said Greg LoPour, DDS, a dentist at LoPour & Associates DDS.
In total, 106 novel coronavirus cases and six related deaths have been reported in the U.S. Worldwide, 92,283 COVID-19 cases and 3,129 deaths have been confirmed as of March 3.