the good doctor on: Contact Lenses During Covid-19

A weekly blog, hope the past week has been uneventful,

We discussed dealing with the current Covid crisis, today I would like to look at contact lenses and how they relate to our times. As you are aware, our world of social media creates a lot of fake news and gets unfounded rumours flying around.

Can contact lens wear increase the risk of contracting Covid-19? Well, the rumour mill is telling us, yes. Thankfully some clever people in the industry, using evidence-based medicine did a literature search and concluded that there is no increased Covid risk with contact lenses.

It doesn’t stop there, of course there are conditions. As always proper hygiene is critical. This means thorough washing of hands with soap and water and thorough drying. No hand sanitizers here, washing is more complete, and hand sanitizer leaves residual alcohol that can get into the lens and burn the eyes. Clean and disinfect contact lenses after each use. Clean your contact lens case daily and let it air dry and regularly replace your case. Do not wear your contact lenses if you are sick and do not wear your lenses when you enter a wet environment (swimming pool, Jacuzzi, shower) all greatly reduce the risk of infection of any kind.

These procedures or habits have always been required. We need to always remember that a contact lens is a medical device and requires diligent care.

Those of us who wear glasses, need to take extra caution during these times. The virus will remain on hard surfaces for some time, so regular washing of spectacles, especially readers, that are taken off and on regularly, is required.

Sorry to be a downer, but we are living in interesting times.

Keep Safe, until next week,

The Good Doctor

Dr. Mark Germain, Optometrist, Burlington Eyecare