Researchers in China have found that people who wear glasses have a lower risk of catching COVID-19.
Authors of the study published in Jama Ophthalmology, Noted that since the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan in December 2019, few patients with spectacles have been hospitalized suffering from COVID-19.
For further investigation, they collected spectacle-wearing information from all COVID-19 patients as part of their medical history.
Their small study found that only 16 (5.8 percent) of the 276 patients admitted to COVID-19 wore glasses for more than eight hours a day.
As they determined that all of these patients were short-sighted, they then looked at the proportion of people with myopia (short-sighted) in the province of Hubei where the hospital hospital is located.
They found the matter to be much larger (.51.5 per cent), indicating that admissions to the short-sighted COVID-19 hospital were five times lower than the population expected.
This is a beautiful observation, but like all studies alone the results should be carefully considered.
While eye protection has always been an important component of personal protective devices (PPE), the severity of the discrepancies reported by this study raises doubts.
This is not to say that the results may not be real, but rather that we should not start advising large-scale behavioral changes (such as wearing goggles with our face masks) until they are independently confirmed.
Are the eyes a window to the virus?
One of the main steps for any viral infection is early entry into the body. While most of our body is covered with protective skin, which is very effective in preventing viruses or bacteria from entering our body, thin “membranes” cover our airways, digestive system and eyes.
The role of this thin membrane is to absorb external oxygen, food and external objects such as body oxygen, food, and our body. Unfortunately, viruses have learned to take advantage of this entry point.
This is the reason why through the use of face masks, goggles and protective clothing, PPE is used to protect these entry points.
However, while we can imagine that the main attack on these regions comes from viral particles scattered in the air as aerosols, the main way the viral particles reach these weak spots is actually through our hands. Therefore, the Covid-19 advice avoids frequent hand washing and touching our face for 20 seconds or more.
So it means that covering our eyes with glasses gives extra protection from the virus, which carries in other people’s breath, but prevents the wearer from touching their eyes.
Indeed, until the month of February, there were reports of people catching COVID-19, not properly protecting their eyes in health care settings. It is also known that similar points of entry into the body (ACE-2 receptors) are also in the eyes favored by coronavirus.
Should we start wearing goggles?
An important part of interpreting any evidence from observational studies is remembering that the interrelationship (two things happening together) is not necessarily a causal cause (one thing causes another). To test for a cause, now requires a controlled trial or testing.
Ideally, this would follow two carefully matched groups of people – some wearing glasses and some not wearing glasses – to see which group gets infected more often. Evidence of such a controlled trial will always be stronger than the evidence of an observational study, as in a recent paper.
We should also note that the authors of this study listed a number of weaknesses. It was a very small study on the same site.
The researchers’ data for the general population came from several previous studies of samples that did not match accurately (in terms of age, demographics and other factors) in their sample of hospitalized COVID-19s. And they can’t guarantee that all people with short-sightedness in the general population wore glasses for more than eight hours a day.
Although this new study is very interesting, there are many reasons to be cautious about this result. We definitely need more information before any advice is given about wearing goggles with our face mask. 
Simon Colstoe, Evidence-Based Health Care and University Ethics Advisor, Senior Lecturer at the University of Portsmouth.
This article is republished from the talk under the Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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