Editorial: COVID-19 Impact on Australian  Orthoptic Clinical Practice

Aust Orthopt J 2020 Volume 52: 30-32

Jane Schuller DipAppSc(Orth) CO MPH GAICD

Many would agree that compared to other countries, Australia has been labelled a pandemic success story. Our nation of 26 million has largely been willing to follow public health directions and our governments in general have allowed science to guide policy. By November 2020 and for the first time in almost 300 days, Victoria recorded zero active COVID-19 cases after its deadly second wave.1 Since then, Australia continues to experience small outbreaks that have been managed effectively with public health measures, snap lockdowns and border closures.

When the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic in March 2020,2 it was a very different story. Australia watched the rest of the world as several countries struggled to deal with the overwhelming number of cases. As cases increased in Australia, uncertainty fuelled anxiety amongst health care workers (HCWs). It was an unsettling time as reports of the growing number of infections in Europe flooded the news and early reports emerged in the ophthalmology space of evidence of SARS-CoV-2 on the ocular surface.3,4