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Yet another surprising study on things that make a difference to the risk of covid has appeared.

This one claims, to quote the report in LiveScience:

People who wear eyeglasses may be at lower risk for catching COVID-19 than those who don't wear glasses, early research from China suggests.

The study researchers analyzed information from 276 patients at a hospital in China's Hubei province and found that only about 6% said they wore glasses for more than 8 hours a day, all of whom had myopia, or nearsightedness. That's much lower than the estimated rate of myopia in Hubei from previous research, which was 31.5%.

I'm skeptical as I am about many studies on things that affect covid. This is a small study and, even in this report, looks like it has problems.

Is there any credibility to the study? Does wearing glasses measurably protect from covid?

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  • Since you read the article... Does it ever make it clear if "31.5%" is for people wearing glasses "more than 8 hours a day" ? So far it sounds like just "only 1/5 of people with myopia wear glasses 8+ hours a day"... (Also it sound plausible there would be some correlation with wearing eyeglasses as touching face/eyes when one has glasses is harder)
    – Alexei Levenkov
    Sep 22, 2020 at 5:43
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    @AlexeiLevenkov - confounding factor: wearing glasses and a mask leads to more frequent face contact while trying to re-find magic position that doesn't fog too much, an effect accentuated in 'flu season (entering warmer & damper atmospheres)
    – Tom Goodfellow
    Sep 22, 2020 at 6:14
  • The study says - "may" so not giving any certainty. The study itself says it has a small sample size. So I think the study is creditable but the study does not claim that glasses measurably protect from covid
    – mmmmmm
    Sep 22, 2020 at 15:57
  • @TomGoodfellow the reddit comments gave the opposite view, glass wearers touch their face less as one you have the mask set up you are less inclined to change its position - neither is covered in the study
    – mmmmmm
    Sep 22, 2020 at 15:59
  • Correlation is not causation. On a different note, glasses are like small face shields.
    – Charlie Crown
    Sep 23, 2020 at 1:03

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