While wearing any masks:
Face Masks May Risk Bacterial Spread to Eyes During Intravitreal Injections
MedPage Today ^ | 10/10/21 | by Charles Bankhead, Senior Editor
Posted on 10/10/2021, 4:29:34 PM by conservative98
SAN ANTONIO — Face masks became seeded “almost instantaneously” with oral and nasopharyngeal bacteria, posing a potential risk of spread to the eyes during intravitreal injections for macular degeneration, according to a study reported here.
Masks for all 73 patients involved in the study tested positive for a variety of common organisms, as well as some uncommon microbes. Bacteria grew on both sides of masks, irrespective of mask material age.
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“We didn’t find a correlation between mask age and inside or outside growth, which suggests [other evidence] that even within a few hours of wearing a mask, you can see bacteria on them,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at medpagetoday.com ...
Lots of things can be contracted through the eyes. I remember a story where a woman died from rabies, without any obvious contact with it. They finally figured out that she had contracted it years prior through the eyes, and it just lay in her system until it finally got her.
I don’t think face masks covering our noses and mouths have shielded us from virus in the air - or on our hands - that made it into our eyes.