As we hurtle towards the much-anticipated removal of restrictions in England introduced because of the pandemic, I think it is fair to expect a barrage of conflicting advice. Is England going to ‘learn to live with Covid’, as suggested by the newly installed and apparently libertarian Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, or is it a useful guinea pig for other countries as they catch up with vaccination rates and wish to avoid becoming a ‘variant factory,’ as suggested by one member of Sage?
We know that, in January of this year, Covid-19 was the top killer in the UK. In May, it was 26th on the list, way behind diseases associated with smoking, for example. We also know that some variants, such as Delta, have increased infectivity. This might not cause serious disease to someone vaccinated or young, but may promote future variants, some likely to have more serious impact.
While expecting the entire population to act with discretion might be a big ask (anybody remember a certain referendum?), I would hope that Optician readers are well-versed in behaving in a manner that is in the best interests of their patients. It is worth remembering that, despite vaccines, SARS-CoV-2 and current variants are here to stay and are much more transmissible than, say, the flu virus. Maintenance of a sterile clinic environment must continue after July.
In the recent 02.07.21 issue of Optician, we ran a review of the BCLA’s online conference, much of which was an introduction to the excellent Contact Lens Evidence-based Academic Reports (Clear). I mentioned that these are available in their entirety as a download from the website of Contact Lens and Anterior Eye journal. Since then, I notice that Core, those communicators of evidence-based science based at Waterloo University, have made available an excellent précis of Clear. The various materials are also free to download at https://core.uwaterloo.ca/?s=CLEAR. A must for all clinicians, I suggest.