Seeing More Damage from COVID

As more people continue to shrug off the dangers of COVID, more news comes to light about the health problems it causes. Here's the latest headline:

Study Finds COVID-19 May Damage Vision

The COVID-19 virus can breach the retinal barrier and potentially damage the eye, according to new research published in April 2024 in PLOS Pathogens.

“This finding is important as we increase our understanding of the long-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection,” Pawan Kumar Singh, Ph.D., an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, said in a news release. “Earlier, researchers were primarily focused on the ocular surface exposure of the virus. However, our findings reveal that SARS-CoV-2 not only reaches the eye during systemic infection but induces a hyperinflammatory response in the retina and causes cell death in the blood-retinal barrier. The longer viral remnants remain in the eye, the risk of damage to the retina and visual function increases.”

"Previous research had shown that COVID-19 was able to infect various ocular tissues and fluids, but the mechanism was uncertain and some believed that COVID-19 could be disseminated through the ocular surface."

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I don't know about anyone else, but I take these findings seriously and will continue to protect myself from COVID.