China’s revealing struggle with childhood myopia
Anxious parents don’t want to let children play outdoors and do less schoolwork
![A chinese schoolchild wearing glasses gazes out of a window. The view is out of focus](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240622_CND000.jpg)
NO ETHICS committee would let researchers trap millions of children indoors for months, just to test the effects on their eyesight. Yet China’s strict zero-covid rules—notably a nationwide lockdown that closed many schools between January and May 2020, leaving children studying online with few chances to leave their homes—created just such a natural experiment.
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This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “China’s revealing struggle with myopia”
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