Chinese Experts: Novel Coronavirus More Fatal to Men than Women

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According to an article by CNBC, men's risk of dying from the 2020 novel coronavirus is higher than that of women. This was a conclusion made by a group of researchers from China after conducting one of the world's biggest study regarding the worldwide epidemic.

Results of the Research 

The research was published on Monday. The research included analysts who study 72,314 records of patients. The records were lent to them by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The records contained a detailed list of the 44,672 confirmed cases of the coronavirus outbreak. Also, the records contain the 16,186 unconfirmed cases of the virus and the 889 cases where the novel coronavirus carriers were showing no symptoms of the disease. 

The patients of the disease were categorized into critical, severe, and mild.

The majority of the confirmed 2019-nCoV cases recorded in the study were people age 30 to 69. Many of the diagnosed individuals had been reported to have "Wuhan-related exposures.' 81 percent of the total confirmed cases were categorized as mild.

Based on the findings of the research, only 4.7 percent of the total confirmed cases had reached the 'critical' level of the illness. Being in the critical level of the illness means that the patients had shown the symptoms of respiratory failure, multiple organ dysfunction, multiple organ failure, and septic shock. Only half of the total cases identified as critical had been fatal.

The data from CCDC had revealed that the fatality rates of the disease for men are higher than for women. Officials had reported that there is a 2.8 percent fatality rate for men with the illness while there is only a 1.7 percent fatality rate for women.

Out of the total confirmed cases of the 2020 Novel Coronavirus, 22,981 were men. This makes it 51 percent of the total cases. 21, 691 female patients were reported as of February 11. 

An associate professor in cellular microbiology named Simon Clarke had stated on Tuesday that the statistical comparison between different sexes may not be caused by their biological differences. 

According to Clarke, the difference may be due to the type of men and women included in the analysis. He claims that the possible cause of their increased risk with the disease is their exposure to some situations without the intervention of their biological make-up. He emphasized that other social factors should also be considered to finally determine if the difference was due to the biological difference between the two sexes. 

Who has a higher fatality risk with the Coronavirus?

Those who are with a preexisting health illness and the elderly are at a higher risk of contracting the 2019-nCoV than others. 

The fatality rate of people increases with age. For people more than 80 years old, the fatality rate of the coronavirus is at 14.8 percent. People age 70 to 79 have a fatality rate of eight percent while people at the age of 60 to 69 have a fatality ratio of 3.6 percent. According to the researchers, it was calculated that the overall fatality ratio of 2.3 percent with the recorded 1,023 deaths from the coronavirus epidemic.