2020 as the Year of Quarantine Myopia

Although reports on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) affecting health already exceed 32,000 articles, studies on direct effects on the eye appear to be limited. Conjunctivitis, retinitis, episcleritis, and optic neuritis have all been described as ocular manifestations, but frequency and morbidity are fortunately not striking. This has relieved us as ophthalmologists and given the impression that we have been spared a heavy patient load attributable to COVID-19 complications. We have focused on reorganizing our clinics and made sure that anti-vascular endothelial growth factor treatments and other urgent patient care were not obstructed. In this issue of JAMA Ophthalmology, Wang et al are telling us another story. They suggest we should be worried about the ophthalmic outcome of COVID-19, not from the virus itself but from the potential outcome of an antivirus measure on eye health, specifically an outcome in children that may have major consequences for visual acuity later in life.