Due to increased handwashing, social distancing and coronavirus-inspired health measures, less people sought care for pinkeye during the pandemic.
The University of Washington researchers compared 2020 and previous years by analyzing both pink eye searches related to Google trends and emergency room visits.
By March 2020, the number of emergency room visits has decreased by 37 per cent compared with previous five year. Meanwhile, search interest in hospitals dropped by 34percent.
According to the study, pinkeye cases can be decreased by increasing social distance, handwashing and taking similar safety precautions as those for Covid.
A new study has found that pink eye care was less sought out by people during the Covid pandemic, than it was in past years. (File photo)
After March 2020, the number of Google searches related to pink eye symptoms dropped by 34% (orange line), shortly after Covid safety restrictions (blue line).
Many people waited for routine appointments during the initial months of the pandemic. Offices were shut down and doctors focused solely on Covid.
In addition, fewer people were infected by other common illnesses through mask-wearing and social distancing.
The flu season in America and elsewhere was, for example, extremely mild from 2020-2021.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only 0.2 percent flu-related tests were positive this season in America. This is compared with up to 30% of the flu tests that came back in the previous three flu seasons.
A new study shows that pinkeye, another common infection, was also less widespread during the pandemic.
In a Thursday paper in JAMA Ophthalmology, researchers from the University of Washington examined this condition.
The highly contagious and contagious pink eye or acute conjunctivitis (as scientists refer to it) is caused by inflammation of the outer portion of the eye. Patients’ whites turn red from this condition.
The infection is usually caused by a bacterial, or viral, condition that can easily be passed to other people through direct contact.
The infection may also spread via surfaces and air droplets. The infection may live for up to weeks on certain surfaces.
Researchers at the University of Washington hypothesized that Covid safety precautions – particularly social distancing, handwashing and hand washing – could lead to a decrease in cases by 2020.
These researchers looked at emergency department visits at the university’s medical center in 2015, 2021 and 2021.
Text mining enabled them to determine a total 1,156 instances of pink eye in emergency departments.
The researchers also used Google search trends for 2016-2020 to determine how frequently people searched Google for pink eye information in America.
Researchers also examined common eye conditions, which aren’t contagious to pinkeye.
The researchers used modeling for both emergency visits as well as Google search analysis to show how trends would have changed if Covid had not shut down the country.
In 2020, pink eye symptoms were less popular than ever (top left), but trends in other non-contagious conditions such as eye infections did not change significantly (top right, bottom right, bottom right).
Researchers found that pink eye was seen by far fewer patients in the hospital after March 2020.
The number of ED visits in 2020 was 37 percent less than the five previous years.
An average 8.4 pinkeye patients visited the emergency department each month starting March 2020, compared with 17.1 in the month prior to the pandemic.
Researchers didn’t observe significant drops in ED visits due to other non-contagious conditions.
Google Search Data showed an identical trend. ‘The search interest for conjunctivitis suddenly decreased in March 2020, and remained low throughout 2018,’ researchers reported.
After March 2020, search interest dropped by 34% compared to the four previous years.
There was not a significant drop in the number of people seeking out symptoms for other non-contagious conditions.
The researchers concluded that the combination of travel restrictions, social distancing and an increased focus on hygiene in the COVID-19 epidemic likely resulted in a decline in viral transmission.
Researchers compared Google searches for pinkeye to mobility data and found that people searched less for this condition while they were at home due to Covid restrictions.
Even though pink eye cases are less common in the spring and winter months than they were during other seasons, this condition tends to cause more severe outbreaks.
Researchers wrote that despite showing a decline in patients seeking emergency treatment for conjunctivitis symptoms, patients may have been less inclined to visit the ED due to fear of getting Covid.
However, Google searches for symptoms and similar trends in emergency rooms suggest that this decrease could be due to less pink eye cases.
The findings show that just like the flu can be prevented by using safety precautions such as handwashing and masking, pink eye can also be avoided.