No, a minus 7 prescription does not automatically qualify someone as legally blind.
Understanding Legal Blindness
Legal blindness isn't defined by a specific prescription number like -7.00. Instead, it's determined by visual acuity and field of vision. In the United States, legal blindness is generally defined as:
- A best-corrected visual acuity of 20/200 or worse in the better eye. This means a person can only see at 20 feet what a person with normal vision (20/20) can see at 200 feet.
- A severely limited field of vision. This is often defined as a field of vision of 20 degrees or less.
A prescription of -7.00 indicates a high degree of myopia (nearsightedness), but it doesn't directly translate to legal blindness. A person with a -7.00 prescription might still achieve better than 20/200 vision with corrective lenses. The key is the best-corrected vision. If, after using corrective lenses (like glasses or contact lenses), their vision is still 20/200 or worse, they would be considered legally blind. Otherwise, they are not.
Many sources confirm this: Quora, Quora, Quora, and Orcam all emphasize that the legal blindness definition is based on best-corrected vision, not the prescription number itself.
While a -7.00 prescription signifies significant nearsightedness and potential vision challenges, it is crucial to remember that visual acuity is the ultimate determining factor in legal blindness classification.
