Dr. Fauci recommends wearing glasses to avoid contracting the coronavirus.

Dr. Jennifer Ashton, owned by Disney

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The chief medical correspondent for the news network asked Fauci if he could see that eye protection is recommended at some point. “You know, I could,” he said.

Fauci explained that the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 infects mucous surfaces, or parts of the body, including the eyes, nose, and mouth, which secrete mucus to prevent pathogens and dirt from entering your body. So “perfect protection” of mucosal surfaces would include covering each one, he said.

“Theoretically, you should protect all mucosal surfaces, so if you have glasses or an eye protector, you should wear it,” he said.

“It is not universally recommended, but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can,” he continued. However, he suggested that one reason this has not yet been promoted to the general public is because “it is very easy for people to make a cloth mask.”

And getting Americans to agree to wearing a face mask that completely covers their nose and mouth in public has been quite difficult, as it is. How would they react if they were told to protect their eyes, too?

Some initial responses on Twitter

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and Facebook ownership

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Instagram suggests that many people are against it. “How long until we are told that hazardous material suits are recommended?” Tweeted a reader by the name of Jeffrey Wozniak.

“Now I can see it … everyone walking around with swimming goggles and a mask. I wonder if ski goggles will also become fashionable, “reflected another.

Others saw this as another troubling sign of how fast the pandemic has progressed. The death toll in the United States reached 150,000 on Wednesday, and the White House Task Force warned that 21 states had registered more than 100 new cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days.

For now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not issued a formal guideline recommending that people wear glasses or eye protection. She only suggests protective glasses for healthcare professionals, noting on her site that “the use of eye protection is recommended in areas with moderate to substantial community transmission.” Therefore, you may see doctors or nurses wearing safety glasses or face shields in the ICU or in areas where they come into close contact with COVID-19 patients. But for areas with minimal or no transmission to the community, eye protection is considered optional, according to the CDC, unless otherwise noted as part of standard precautions.

However, Qatar Airlines recently asked flight attendants to start wearing safety glasses, as well as protective suits, masks and gloves. And some of the health experts who spoke to NPR recently suggested that it would be advisable to wear glasses or a face shield on a crowded plane.

But a recent report published in The Lancet that analyzed 172 observational studies on how physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection affected the spread of COVID-19 suggested that people may be three times less likely to become infected if they wear eye protection. . Face shields, goggles, and glasses were associated with a lower risk of infection (6%) compared to lack of eye coverage (16%).

And there are some people, including the virologist and epidemiologist Dr. Joseph Fair, who believe they were infected with COVID-19 through their eyes. Dr. Fair told NBC

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Today shows in May that although he wore a mask and gloves and wiped his seat on a crowded flight two weeks earlier, he still fell ill, and guilty of having no protection over his eyes. “You can still get this virus through your eyes, and epidemiologically, it’s the best guess I have for how I got it,” he said.

So why is eye protection recommended for healthcare workers and not for the general public? Dr. John Brooks, medical director of the COVID-19 response from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recently told AARP.org that “the virus could enter the body through mucous membranes that cover the whites of the eyes. ” – but it would be very difficult to test. “The researchers know that COVID-19 spreads between people who are in close contact through the respiratory drops produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or speaks. But identifying exactly where the coronavirus was rooted in someone’s body, through the nose, eyes, mouth, or a combination of all three, it is almost impossible.

Preliminary research suggests that we are probably more likely to become infected through the nose and mouth. In fact, a recent study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, infects cells in the nose much more easily than cells in the throat or lungs. . And the first investigations have found that only a small percentage of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 whose eye fluid was tested positive for having the virus in their eyes, although it should be noted that the eye fluid smear is not standard in care. to the coronavirus patient, so there certainly could be more cases than have been recorded.

Additionally, Dr. Thomas Steinemann, a spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, told NPR that the coronavirus would have to run “a more tortuous route” to travel from its peepers to its respiratory system. First, the virus would have to pass through the mucous membrane of the eyes. Then it would need to be swept away by tears behind the cheeks to reach the nasal cavity. And from there, it would have to flow from the nose to the throat. It is certainly possible, but it is less direct than inhaling the virus directly through the nose or mouth. And the CDC notes that while the nose and mouth are the main areas where the virus enters the body, “it is possible for a person to obtain COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus and then touching their own mouth. , nose or possibly his eyes. ”

However, this may be subject to change as we learn more about the virus. Health officials, including Fauci and the CDC, initially discouraged the public from wearing face masks at the beginning of the pandemic, after all, before reversing the course and requesting the use of uniform masks once they realized the spread of asymptomatic spread. Keep in mind that COVID-19 is a new disease that has infected nearly 17 million people worldwide in just over six months.

Public safety recommendations will continue to evolve.

So should you pair glasses or a shield with your mask when you go to the store or travel through a crowded area? The bottom line is that it is not yet recommended for the general public, but it could not be harmful if you want to take an extra step to protect yourself. However, you should definitely wear a mask in public, avoid crowded places, and wash your hands before and after you touch your face. And avoid touching your eyes.

Read more about MarketWatch’s coronavirus coverage here.