PEOPLE WHO WEAR GLASSES LESS LIKELY TO GET COVID
People who wear glasses are two-to-three times less likely to get infected with COVID-19, a study has found.
Interestingly, the finding is an outcome of a study conducted by Indian researchers; it had 304 patients under the scanner whose glasses-wearing habits were examined through a questionnaire and compared with existing studies of the general population, according to research published in medRxiv, which is not peer-reviewed. The study was immediately picked up by foreign journals; Indian publications latched onto it later.
“This study showed that the risk of COVID was two to three times less in spectacle-wearing population than the population not using spectacles,” Amit Kumar Saxena said in the findings, the UK’s Mirror reported.“Protective role of the spectacles was found statistically significant, if those were used for (a) long period of the day,” Saxena added.
“Touching and rubbing of the eyes with contaminated hands may be a significant route of infection.”
The researchers said people touch their face on average 23 times an hour and the eyes on average three times per hour.“Touching one’s nose and mouth is significantly reduced when wearing a face mask properly. But wearing a face mask does not protect the eyes,” the study said. “The nasolacrimal duct may be a route of virus transmission from conjunctival sac to the nasopharynx,” according to the study.
As per Daily Mail, last year researchers from China found Covid patients were five times less likely to have frames than the general population. The team of researchers from The Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University stated that they believe that the receptors on which the virus latches onto to enter and infect human cells, ACE-2 receptors, is found in the eyes. The authors discovered that people who wear glasses are less susceptible to Covid 19. The study noted that the eyes are considered an important channel of SARS-CoV2 to enter the human body and the eyeglasses act as a protective eye gear, hence, reducing the risk of virus transferring to the eyes.