Increased Prevalence of Myopia in Young Children during COVID-19 Quarantine

Article: Vision problems arise in young school kids in COVID-19 quarantine
Source: University of Minnesota, via AOA
Published: January 14, 2021

Myopia, or near-sightedness, is a growing concern in some parts of the world, recently being studied in detail in East Asian countries such as China. The current prospective study examined the refractive error of 123,535 children aged 6 to 13 years from 10 elementary schools in Feicheng, China over 6 consecutive years, ending in July 2020. While the researchers found a shift toward myopia in children ages 6 to 8 studied between 2015 and 2019, what was most striking about the results was the increased prevalence of myopia during 2020, when schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and school children transitioned to online learning. Though the majority of cases were mild at an average of -0.3 diopters of myopic shift, the prevalence of myopia in 2020 was higher than the highest prevalence in 2015 to 2019 for students ages 6 (21.5% vs 5.7%), 7 (26.2% vs 16.2%), and 8 (37.2% vs 27.7%). There was no increased prevalence of myopia in children ages 9 to 13 despite longer durations of online learning. With a topic this complex and new, the researchers added the appropriate remarks about limitations of the study before offering a cautious suggestion toward evidence of cause being decreased time spent outdoors, especially during the younger ages when the eyes are still developing. A commentary in the article and in the same journal adds, however, that "older children's eyesight may not have changed much because they were already accustomed to spending less time outdoors and more time on screens and doing close-up work before the pandemic began," suggesting that the shift is not necessarily progressive.

Spherical equivalent refraction distribution in primary school students aged 6-13 years

My rating of this study: ⭐⭐⭐

Wang J, Li Y, Musch DC, et al. "Progression of Myopia in School-Aged Children After COVID-19 Home Confinement." JAMA Ophthalmology.  139(3):293-300. 14 January 2021. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2020.6239