so everybody is talking about the coronavirus right now and a lot of
people are getting freaked out about it and I know in the eye clinic almost
every day I'm having patients ask me what I think about the coronis virus
outbreak so in this video I'm gonna go over how I feel about the whole corona
virus thing as well as sharing some little-known information about how the
coronavirus could potentially spread and even infect the eye let's take a
look hello everyone this is dr. Allen here from the doctor eye health show helping
you learn all about the eyes and vision and today we're gonna take a little bit
of a change in direction we're gonna talking about current events
specifically about the corona virus the wuhan virus or now known as the covid
19 virus and just to start off letting you know as a healthcare professional I
do take this very seriously I'm personally not freaking out about it
like some people are but I think that it's as again as a health care
professional knowing that people are getting sick and people are even dying
from this disease I do take it very seriously now if you've been paying
attention to the news you've been hearing about the corona virus which
started off in China East Asia and is now actually spreading a little bit more
throughout the world now thankfully we have a new name for it it's called the
covid-19 virus personally I'm not a big fan of that name I like to go by symbols
and different things like that and honestly we've been talking about the
corona virus for the last two months so I think it's probably gonna continue to
be called the corona virus now although I've been taking the coronavirus thing
very seriously I am personally not worried about it or really that anxious
about the whole situation at all partly because when I was in school we
had to deal with the whole Ebola thing and what ultimately happened with that
and with what's going on right now being that the entire kind of global community
is paying attention to it we have government agencies and healthcare
agencies like the CDC and the World Health Organization working to kind of
identify what's going on who's getting infected and really kind of taking the
best steps to identify it and work on it makes me just feel better about the
whole thing in general on top of that of the cases that have been
reported about 80% of the people only experience mild symptoms and the people
who are eventually got going on - having lethal effects and dying from it are
people who already have other illnesses or are really weak immune states and
that holds true with pretty much any virus in fact the current influenza
virus is still a more major concern because of how widespread it is and
currently still kills almost like 38,000 people a year here in the United States
I'm not exactly sure on that number but it's pretty close now the corona virus
symptoms are the covid 19 symptoms are very similar to other types of viruses
or colds people usually experience fever shortness of breath and a cough and this
is the further question that we asked just about any patient who comes into
the medical clinic anyway what's important is that if I'm seeing a
patient for a routine exam or if they're coming in from something like a pink eye
infection we ask these questions and then we follow up with an appropriate
follow-up question such as hey have you been in China or East Asia within the
last two weeks or so or have you also been in contact with a person who has
been ill and been in East Asia in the last few weeks and those are very
important questions not just for me as a health care professional because I'm in
close contact with these individuals but also for our community at large because
we don't want to spread this to everybody else now in terms of how the
coronavirus spreads it spreads very similarly to every other type of virus
whether it be influenza or just the common cold and that's when we cough or
sneeze and little air droplets that are infected kind of get carried over and it
lands on somebody else's mouth or they breathe it in and that's usually how a
lot of these infections takes place as well as these other bodily secretions
that can land on hard objects and perhaps live for a short period of time
but thankfully this specific kovin 19 virus isn't really believed to last very
long on hard surfaces although with that in mind it is still really good practice
to clean and disinfect any sort of thing that people may have touched
particularly if people are not feeling well in the household so I think if
somebody is having problems with symptoms cold like symptoms again
coronavirus or not or just a common cold make sure that
you are disinfecting cleaning doorknobs any sort of cupboard handles light
switches things like that and of course as always make sure you're washing your
hands and one little-known and interesting fact that people really
don't talk about is how viruses can actually be spread and potentially
infect the eye and that is because these infected little water droplets that pass
through the air can land on the surface of the eye and your tears and the
conjunctiva the gelatinous like surface of the eye is a possible way of
transmission of that virus into your body and that's a one of the reasons why
in hospitals you will see doctors wearing eye protection during procedures
or working with people who are very sick and that's again because bodily fluids
and even coughs and sneezes that get onto the surface of the eye could
penetrate into the body and that's why if you are a health care professional
working with people who are ill or just living at home it is best to try not to
touch around your mouth your nose or your eyes because those mucous membranes
could get infected now as an eye care professional I've actually gotten
notices about how these sort of viruses specifically the corona virus could
potentially affect the eye and even cause a conjunctivitis also known as a
pink eye and although most people think of pinkeye as being a bacteria most
cases are caused by viruses again similar to the common cold and influenza
now I personally have not read any cases specifically of this COVID 19 corona
virus causing pinkeye however theoretically based on what we know
about viruses it is certainly possible that it could get into the eye and
potentially even pass from one person to the other through the tears and that's
exactly why pinkeye in general is so violent and spreads through schools and
things like that very fast because when you have the virus on the eye and then
you touch your tears you get all that watery secretion you touch something
like a door handle and then the next person touches that door handle and they
rub their eye and it passes from one to the next interestingly enough even
viruses like HIV can be found in the tears and that is exactly why in the eye
clinic whenever we have a person who has HIV we have to pay attention
what touches their eyes so we can super deep clean everything that way it
reduces the chance of it's spreading and although with the knowledge that yes a
things like HIV can be in the tears there has been zero cases ever reported
of HIV passing from one person's eye to the next and infecting somebody but with
this knowledge of how viruses are shed in the tears is exactly why we are so
incredibly just absolute bacteria neat freaks when it comes to the eye clinic I
mean we deep clean every room after every patient whether they have pinkeye
or not but if somebody does have a red eye or an infection we pull out some
really nasty chemicals to clean everything I mean this is stuff that you
don't want on your skin we have to put on gloves and things like that and
everything and I'm enough of germaphobe that if I do have a patient with an
infection I'm basically paying attention to every single little thing I touched
from the moment I came in the room including what pens I touched what part
of the keyboards I touched what part of the chair everything again when it comes
to any type of an outbreak of any new disease the media goes crazy with it and
I encourage you to make sure that although it's important to pay attention
to what's going on with current events it's important to also pay attention to
what the authority is that's making those statements so if you have a friend
or just somebody out there who's been tweeting a lot about different articles
or news releases about these kind of corona virus outbreaks make sure that
it's not something that's causing you anxiety a lot of times it's being blown
out of proportion and if there is an important thing
that's changing you will hear about it from the CDC or the World Health
Organization otherwise what I've been recommending all of my patients to do is
just the typical normal things you'd have during any flu season and that is
to wash your hands frequently again if you're sneezing they're
coughing make sure that not use your hands try to use the sleeve of your
shirt for example again try not to touch your face specifically around your mouth
nose or your eyes again make sure you're cleaning off cupboards and hard surfaces
that are commonly used especially if someone else in the house isn't feeling
well and if you are feeling a little under the weather it's better for you to
stay at home take a day off of work and rest because just mother nature letting
you rest is gonna usually help you feel a lot better and get over that
and this were to reduce your chances of spreading that to other people at work
and things like that but as always if you are feeling really sick make sure
that you are reaching out to a medical provider in your area so that you can be
taken care of hey thanks for watching if you enjoyed this video smash that like
button for me otherwise keep an eye on it and we'll talk to you soon