Families may be putting off eye exams over COVID-19 concerns, but one mom in Florida says keeping an eye out for warning signs is crucial right now as eye doctors adapt to keep kids safe and rebound after extra time at home.

Toddlers tend to fall when they're learning how to walk. Just like Erin Miller's daughter.

"My daughter was 15 months old," said Miller. "She seems to be falling a lot."

So they took her to a free public vision screening put on by For Eye Care Foundation on Florida's east coast.

"She was screened by Dr. Cano and he gave my mom a printout and said that there were some red flags," Miller said.

Turns out, she's nearsighted in one eye but farsighted in the other.

It's called amblyopia, or lazy eye. It's a condition that can lead to permanent damage if not caught early.

"If we can screen these children before their eyes mature they can be treated and prevent visual loss," said Dr. Cano.

That's why Dr. Cano says you shouldn't put off a visit to the eye doctor because of the pandemic. There are tools available to keep kids safe.

"One of the nice devices that we use, which I happen to have with me, is this device," Cano said. "It allows us to be over six feet away from the child."

Keeping social distance while keeping eyes healthy, Florida Society of Ophthalmology also offers resources for quick and easy at-home vision tests to help parents and guardians whose children might be spending more time at home.

Miller's daughter is two now and doing just fine with her glasses, and they're grateful to have caught the issue early.

"Incredibly grateful," said Miller. "I'm a special educator. I understand the importance of early intervention."

It's a good reminder to keep a close eye on your child's vision.

"We feel very blessed that we were in the right place at the right time," said Miller.

Right now, fewer than 20 percent of preschool children are screened for vision problems, according to the Florida Society of Ophthalmology.

To access the American Academy of Ophthalmology's site for at-home eye tests, click here.

For more information and resources for amblyopia, click here.

This story was first reported by Channing Frampton at WTXL in Tallahassee, Florida.

OCOEE, Fla. —

Maureen Woods from Levi County, Florida, says the hospital staff at Orlando Health saved her life after she caught COVID-19.

Thanks to Orlando Health-Health Central Hospital, Woods was able to reunite with the people that saved her.

Woods came back to Orlando Health-Health Central Hospital in Ocoee for an emotional reunion.

"Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you did for me and my husband while I was here. Words can't express how much I'm grateful,” Woods told the staff.

Woods had spent nearly three weeks in a coma fighting to survive at the hospital.

“It was amazing to realize exactly how many people had a hand in my recovery,” Woods said. “On one hand it was overwhelming but on the other hand it was gratifying to be able to thank them for everything they did for me and my husband."

"There were sometimes that we didn't know if my wife was going to make it and they were telling me to keep positive thoughts and, you know, ‘we've got the best doctors the best people looking after her,’" Wood’s husband Clay Woods said.

On July 24, Maureen Woods was admitted to the hospital after intense pain from a kidney stone while visiting Disney World.

"I ended up septic, my lung collapsed. I had pneumonia. I got COVID. My organs started shutting down. It was apparently dire straits. They had my husband call the family in,” Maureen Woods said.

She spent 39 days in the critical care unit and a total of 53 days as a hospital patient.

"Her oxygen levels were very, very low. She had some critical points where we had some really difficult conversations,” Dr. Joel Santora said.

For the rest of her stay, Maureen Woods was transferred to Orlando Health's in-patient rehab unit before she was discharged.

"It's a testament of the team, passion of the team, Maureen's willpower to live – faith, medicine. It's an awesome combination,” Santora said.

"With COVID and how many patients they lose on a regular basis, having someone like me come through all of this — come back and thank them and say, 'I'm alive because of you.' I hope they go home tonight feeling good about what they do,” Maureen Woods said.

The Detroit Lions will play Tampa Bay without interim coach Darrell Bevell, making him the NFL’s first head coach to miss a game because of COVID-19 protocols.

Detroit’s coaching staff will also be without defensive coordinator Cory Undlin, defensive line coach Bo Davis, defensive backs coach Steve Gregory, and linebackers coach Ty McKenzie in Week 16.

Wide receivers coach Robert Prince will be the team’s third head coach this season on Saturday at Ford Field against the Buccaneers.

Bevell was 1-2 after Matt Patricia was fired last month. Quarterbacks coach Sean Ryan will call plays in place of Bevell, who also serves as the team’s offensive coordinator, against the Bucs. Evan Rothstein, who helps the team with research and analysis, will lead the defensive staff.

Bevell said Wednesday he had not tested positive for COVID-19, but he was one of the coaches affected by contact tracing. The Lions closed their training facility on Tuesday because one player and one coach tested positive for the coronavirus, and resumed on-field preparations on Wednesday to face Tampa Bay.

SEOUL, South Korea —

South Korea had seemed to be winning the fight against the coronavirus: Quickly ramping up its testing, contact-tracing and quarantine efforts paid off when it weathered an early outbreak without the economic pain of a lockdown. But a deadly resurgence has reached new heights during Christmas week, prompting soul-searching on how the nation sleepwalked into a crisis.

The 1,241 infections on Christmas Day were the largest daily increase. Another 1,132 cases were reported Saturday, bringing South Korea's caseload to 55,902.

Over 15,000 were added in the last 15 days alone. An additional 221 fatalities over the same period, the deadliest stretch, took the death toll to 793.

As the numbers keep rising, the shock to people's livelihoods is deepening and public confidence in the government eroding. Officials could decide to increase social distancing measures to maximum levels on Sunday, after resisting for weeks.

Tighter restrictions could be inevitable because transmissions have been outpacing efforts to expand hospital capacities.

In the greater Seoul area, more facilities have been designated for COVID-19 treatment and dozens of general hospitals have been ordered to allocate more ICUs for virus patients. Hundreds of troops have been deployed to help with contract tracing.

Related video: Hospitals packed as California nears 2 million virus cases

At least four patients have died at their homes or long-term care facilities while waiting for admission this month, said Kwak Jin, an official at the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The agency said 299 among 16,577 active patients were in serious or critical condition.

“Our hospital system isn’t going to collapse, but the crush in COVID-19 patients has significantly hampered our response,” said Choi Won Suk, an infectious disease professor at the Korea University Ansan Hospital, west of Seoul.

Choi said the government should have done more to prepare hospitals for a winter surge.

“We have patients with all kinds of serious illnesses at our ICUs and they can’t share any space with COVID-19 patients, so it’s hard,” Choi said. “It’s the same medical staff that has been fighting the virus for all these months. There’s an accumulation of fatigue.”

Critics say the government of President Moon Jae-in became complacent after swiftly containing the outbreak this spring that was centered in the southeastern city of Daegu.

The past weeks have underscored risks of putting economic concerns before public health when vaccines are at least months away. Officials had eased social distancing rules to their lowest in October, allowing high-risk venues like clubs and karaoke rooms to reopen, although experts were warning of a viral surge during winter when people spend longer hours indoors.

Jaehun Jung, a professor of preventive medicine at the Gachon University College of Medicine in Incheon, said he anticipates infections to gradually slow over the next two weeks.

The quiet streets and long lines snaking around testing stations in Seoul, which are temporarily providing free tests to anyone regardless of whether they have symptoms or clear reasons to suspect infections, demonstrate a return of public alertness following months of pandemic fatigue.

Officials are also clamping down on private social gatherings through Jan. 3, shutting down ski resorts, prohibiting hotels from selling more than half of their rooms and setting fines for restaurants if they accept groups of five or more people.

Still, lowering transmissions to the levels seen in early November — 100 to 200 a day — would be unrealistic, Jung said, anticipating the daily figure to settle around 300 to 500 cases.

The higher baseline might necessitate tightened social distancing until vaccines roll out — a dreadful outlook for low-income workers and the self-employed who drive the country’s service sector, the part of the economy the virus has damaged the most.

“The government should do whatever to secure enough supplies and move up the administration of vaccines to the earliest possible point,” Jung said.

South Korea plans to secure around 86 million doses of vaccines next year, which would be enough to cover 46 million people in a population of 51 million. The first supplies, which will be AstraZeneca vaccines produced by a local manufacturing partner, are expected to be delivered in February and March. Officials plan to complete vaccinating 60% to 70% of the population by around November.

There’s disappointment the shots aren’t coming sooner, though officials have insisted South Korea could afford a wait-and-see approach as its outbreak isn’t as dire as in America or Europe.

South Korea's earlier success could be attributed to its experience in fighting a 2015 outbreak of MERS, the Middle East respiratory syndrome, caused by a different coronavirus.

After South Korea reported its first COVID-19 patient on Jan. 20, the KDCA was quick to recognize the importance of mass testing and sped up an approval process that had private companies producing millions of tests in just weeks.

When infections soared in the Daegu region in February and March, health authorities managed to contain the situation by April after aggressively mobilizing technological tools to trace contacts and enforce quarantines.

But that success was also a product of luck — most infections in Daegu were linked to a single church congregation. Health workers now are having a much harder time tracking transmissions in the populous capital area, where clusters are popping up just about everywhere.

South Korea has so far weathered its outbreak without lockdowns, but a decision on Sunday to raise distancing restrictions to the highest “Tier-3” could possibly shutter hundreds of thousands of non-essential businesses across the nation.

That could be for the best, said Yoo Eun-sun, who is struggling to pay rent for three small music tutoring academies she runs in Incheon and Siheung, also near Seoul, amid a dearth of students and on-and-off shutdowns.

“What parents would send their kids to piano lessons" unless transmissions decrease quickly and decisively, she said.

Yoo also feels that the government’s middling approach to social distancing, which has targeted specific business activities while keeping the broader part of the economy open, has put an unfair financial burden on businesses like hers.

“Whether it’s tutoring academies, gyms, yoga studies or karaokes, the same set of businesses are getting hit again and again,” she said. “How long could we go on?"

Some of the first executive orders signed by President Joe Biden are directives requiring masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus in this country. The orders, one about federal property and one about travel, are limited to locations and people the Biden administration has control over.

In addition, Biden is urging all Americans to wear face coverings for 100 days, with the idea being a concentrated effort for this long could help contain the spread of the coronavirus as vaccination efforts are ramping up.

Here is a look at how Americans may be impacted by the new executive orders:

Domestic travel

There is now a federal mask requirement that applies to airports, planes, ships, and many intercity buses, trains and public transportation.

Although airlines, Amtrak, and other modes of transportation already had individual or regional mask requirements, the executive order makes it a federal level requirement and helps backstop any wiggle room on the local level.

There are still unanswered questions about how this order will be enforced, and which modes of transportation, exactly, are covered.

International travel

Travelers coming to the U.S. from another country must show a negative COVID-19 test before heading to this country, and then quarantine upon arrival.

Federal property

Masks and social distancing efforts are now required on all federal property and federal lands. This includes places like federal courthouses, FBI or other federal agency buildings both in D.C. and around the country, and national parks and forests.

While regional or statewide mask mandates have informed local decisions at these locations, the federal level mask requirement helps ensure consistency of requirements on federal property.

Federal employees

All federal employees and contractors are required to wear masks while on federal property or otherwise on-the-job.