Solar eclipse mania gripped North America on April 8 as the breathtaking celestial spectacle captivated tens of millions of people. The Moon's shadow plunged the Pacific coast of Mexico into total darkness at 18:07 GMT (11:37 pm IST) and then swept across the US, returning to the ocean over Canada's Atlantic coast just under an hour and a half after landfall. Many viewing parties, festivals and mass weddings took place on the day. However, soon after the total solar eclipse, there was a sharp increase in Google searches for "hurt eyes", as per a report in NBC News.
According to the searches, some individuals in the sun's path may have been concerned that they had looked at it for too long. In the United States, searches for "my eyes hurt" increased between 2:30 and 3 pm ET (12:00 am to 12:30 am IST), coinciding with the solar eclipse over a sizable chunk of the nation. By 4 pm ET (1:30 am IST), when the eclipse had passed over most of the United States, searches for the topic had decreased, but they were still greater than they had been in prior years.
New Hampshire, West Virginia, Arkansas, Indiana, and Rhode Island were the top five states where the phrase "my eyes hurt" was searched the most. Two of these states were outside the eclipse's path.
Notably, NASA had said that it is not safe to look directly at the Sun without specialized eye protection for solar viewing. They wrote, "Viewing any part of the bright Sun through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury." They had recommended looking through safe solar viewing glasses or a safe handheld solar viewer at all times.
As per NBC, looking at the sun can cause two primary kinds of injuries: damage to the nerve tissue within the eye and a burn on the exterior. Dr. Daniel Lattin, an ophthalmologist at Nemours Children's Health in Jacksonville, Florida, told the outlet, "You can get a little bit of a burn to the surface of the eye, or what we call solar keratitis. You can get sort of a burn to that cornea, and that'll cause redness and tearing and those sorts of symptoms. That should resolve on its own, within a day or two, without any sort of permanent damage."
Vision symptoms are more common and should be taken seriously. According to another medical professional, solar retinopathy usually develops itself 24 hours following sun exposure. There is no pain or discomfort connected to the condition.
