Can Glasses Stop COVID-19?
A tale of yet more dubious research
In the endless news cycle that is COVID-19 there’s an almost ceaseless cry that is repeated over and over again. While the subject changes, the basic idea has remained remarkably similar over the last 14 months: “[x] will protect you against coronavirus!”.
Sadly, it’s almost never true.
The newest case of this hopeful thinking has to do with eyeglasses. Headlines across the globe have, for the last week, been proclaiming that people who wear glasses are less likely to catch COVID-19. The New York Post even said that people who wear glasses are “2–3 times less likely to get COVID-19” than people who don’t which, if true, is a truly remarkable fact. Maybe instead of social distancing and masks we could’ve just all learned from the myopic masterminds in our lives and gotten some frames?
Unfortunately, the truth is a bit less fantastic than the headlines suggest. The science is, at best, incredibly shaky, and probably means almost nothing to your life at all.
People who wear glasses probably aren’t immune to COVID-19.
