Conference report: ESCRS virtual 2020

The 38th annual congress of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons was inevitably impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. This year’s conference was due to take place in Amsterdam but instead was broadcast globally on a virtual platform.

The Congress started with tributes paid to Mr Li Wenliang, the Chinese ophthalmologist who was among the first to alert colleagues and friends to a cluster of SARS-like pneumonia cases and who sadly passed away two months later, age 33 years, as a result of Covid-19. Across Europe, eye care practitioners had to adapt to the new worldwide situation and learnings from different countries were shared. As a consequence, some of the topics that have attracted interest at previous ESCRS Congresses, such as artificial intelligence (AI), have become even more relevant.