COVID-19 Update
Here’s what you can do to protect your eyes while working from home and what we are doing to keep you safe.
How to Protect Yourself
How We Protect You
- We are taking the temperature of any one entering the office before they are allowed to actually enter the office. Anyone who has a temperature of 100.0 or above will be asked to return once their temperature has been less than 99.0 for three consecutive days without fever-reducing medication. This includes our employees.
- We are closed for lunch from 12:30 to 1:30 pm. Since we have minimized the amount of staff on hand to minimize your exposure, we do not have enough people on hand to stay open during lunch.
- We have closed our reception and kids’ area. To minimize exposure, we’ll bring you straight back into the exam room. Any guests that you bring with you will need to either be in the exam room with you or wait outside the office.
- Please limit yourself to just one guest. As mentioned previously, we have closed our reception and kids areas, and there’s really only room in the exam room for one additional person.
- All services including eyewear pickup, adjustments and repairs, and purchasing glasses will require appointments. We will not be able to accommodate walk-ins during Shelter-in-Place, so that we can make sure that patients entering the office are spaced apart to minimize your exposure to other patients.
- Eyewear pick up will be by curbside pickup. When your eyewear has arrived, we will call you and schedule a time for you to pick it up. Just pull your car up in front of the office, give us a call that you’re here, and we’ll run it out to you.
- Adjustments and repairs. Please call us to schedule an adjustment or repair. If it’s a repair, please let us know what’s broke when you call so that we can determine whether or not we need to order any parts first.
- Purchasing eyewear. Call us to schedule a private viewing. This allows us time to disinfect the frames that patients have tried on before you try them on. We’ll also adjust your final selection to you so that you’re less likely to need an adjustment later and can take advantage of curbside pickup.
We realize that these changes will make things less convenient than you are accustomed to. We plan to only have these changes in effect while the risk of contracting COVID-19 is high. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Contacts and COVID-19
Great news! You can still wear your contacts safely during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is currently no scientific evidence that wearing contact lenses increases the risk of contracting COVID-19. The virus is primarily spread by being in close proximity to an infected individual who coughs or sneezes and inhaling the resulting droplets. For this reason, the importance of social distancing cannot be stressed enough. However, studies have found that there is very little evidence that COVID-19 is present in tears, which indicates that while touching the eyes can represent a possible factor in transmission, it is a fairly weak factor of transmission. However, there are several factors that are important in minimizing the risk of COVID-19 transmission while wearing contact lenses. These include:
Washing Your Hands
It is incredibly important right now to wash your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds and dry them with an unused paper towel before handling contact lenses or glasses.
Disposing of Old Contacts
If you wear daily lenses, dispose of them after every use. Lenses with two-week, monthly, or longer replacement schedules should cleaned and disinfected as recommended by your eye doctor. Dispose of storage cases and care solution bottles at least monthly. Never top off solution in your case, always empty out used solution and wipe your case dry.
If You're sick, Stop Wearing Contacts
As with other types of illness, anyone who feels sick with cold or flu-like symptoms should discontinue contact lens wear during this time period.
It is also important to note that there is no scientific evidence to support that wearing glasses provides protection against COVID-19 and other viral conditions. COVID-19 and many other viruses can remain on surfaces for hours to days so if you do wear glasses, make sure to wash your hands before handling them and wash your glasses with soap and water after they have been worn.
