Do Ordinary Eyeglasses Offer Protection Against COVID-19?

[2greys]

Eyeglasses keep you from tripping over footstools and walking into walls, but they also might have a side benefit to spark envy among those with 20/20 vision.

People who wear glasses every day might be less susceptible to COVID-19 infection, a Chinese study reports.

Only about 6% of 276 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 at Suizhou Zengdu Hospital in China needed to wear glasses daily due to their nearsightedness. But the proportion of nearsighted people in Hubei province, where the hospital is located, is much higher -- around 32%, according to the study.

Eyeglasses might foil COVID-19 infection because they "prevent or discourage wearers from touching their eyes, thus avoiding transferring the virus from the hands to the eyes," Dr. Yiping Wei, of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, and colleagues speculated.

Eye protection also could potentially reduce the risk of virus-laden airborne droplets contacting the eyes, the study authors said in the report published online Sept. 16 in JAMA Ophthalmology.

However, eyeglass wearers who did contract COVID-19 fell just as sick as those with normal vision, the findings showed.

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[2greys]

"However, eyeglass wearers who did contract COVID-19 fell just as sick as those with normal vision, the findings showed."

Obviously, they could have inhaled the infection.

[Ergendl in reply to 2greys]

Or taken their glasses off and rubbed their eyes.

[SORRELHIPPO]

For some years I wore glasses at work, when not needed. Non prescription glass with reactor light. Most of the open plan offices, in both Health and Social Services, had horrid florescent tube lighting, the reflection of this off the white paper I wrote my reports on, gave me dreadful headaches. I certainly felt they helped, when patients did things like sneeze all over you.