White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci promised during an online event Friday with Duke Science & Society that “we will crush” the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to recent scientific advancements. “Biomedical research and science have given us something that just a decade ago would have seemed unimaginable — to be able to have a new virus that we had never had experienced before being thrust upon us and (throwing) us into one of the most extraordinary, destructive pandemics in over 100 years,” Dr. Fauci said.
He continued by noting that just over the past few days, science has allowed us to have a vaccine from drugmakers like Pfizer that ensures “we will crush this outbreak.” It’s led to so many people suffering, “not necessarily directly related to being ill themselves, but all the secondary consequences that go with the effects of a global pandemic such as this.”
And we’re continuing to learn more and more about all the different ways people are continuing to suffer from the virus — as well as the coronavirus symptoms they encounter and which keep getting discovered.
According to the online magazine Knowridge Science Report, for example, a new study born out of research conducted by a team at Hofstra University in New York has discovered a “rare, sight-stealing” infection that may be linked to COVID-19.
The details: The genesis of this study was the fact that during a two-month time span, three COVID patients in a New York health system developed keratitis. That’s an inflammation of the cornea, which in turn caused an infection of the tissue or fluid in the eyeball known as endophthalmitis.
Researchers decided to investigate because this is a rare condition — especially to have three cases in such a short time span, with all of them connected to COVID patients. The consequences here were exceedingly serious. One of three patients died from COVID. Another lost all eyesight, and the third had to have an eye removed.
It is worth repeating at this point — it’s rare for keratitis to turn into endophthalmitis. Knowridge Science Report notes an earlier study of almost 10,000 eyes wherein only 27 of those eyes (over 15 years) showed keratitis that turned into endophthalmitis. And what’s more, there’s not much else in the way of scientific research to suggest most people should start worrying about this.
However, what this does represent is one more reminder of the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic — as well as how deadly its common side effects as well as its outside, edge-case permutations can be.