Proportion of those wearing glasses daily for extended periods lower than for general population
FRIDAY, Sept. 18, 2020 (HealthDay News) — The proportion of inpatients with COVID-19 who wear eyeglasses for extended daily periods is lower than in the general population, according to a study published online Sept. 16 in JAMA Ophthalmology.
Weibiao Zeng, from The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University in China, and colleagues examined the association between daily wearing of eyeglasses and susceptibility to COVID-19 in a study enrolling all inpatients with COVID-19 in a designated hospital for COVID-19 treatment from Jan. 27 to March 13, 2020, in Suizhou, China. Data were included for 276 patients with COVID-19.
The researchers found that 16 patients (5.8 percent) wore glasses for more than eight hours a day and had myopia. The proportion of people with myopia in the Hubei province was 31.5 percent based on a previous study, which was much higher than the proportion of COVID-19 patients with myopia in this study.
“The study by Zeng et al is provocative and raises the possibility that use of eye protection by the general public might offer some degree of protection from COVID-19,” write the authors of an accompanying editorial. “More retrospective and prospective studies are needed to confirm the association that was observed in this study and to determine whether there is any incremental benefit to wearing eyeglasses or other forms of eye protection in public settings.”
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