Why Coronavirus Kills More Male Than Female: Here Are The Facts

Despite researchers reiterating that nobody is completely immune from COVID-19, recent statistics have a common link: Men seem more susceptible to being infected by the highly contagious virus.

Going by the data offered by Global Health 50/50 and CNN, countries worst affected by the global pandemic—Italy, China, and South Korea—have witnessed a sizeable percentage of the male population tested positive. As per the National Health Institute of Italy; a whopping 70% of the fatalities due to the crisis occurred in men.

Meanwhile, 60% of the cases tested positive in the virus outbreak were men. As per a media report, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, addressed the buzz around the statistics in Italy during the White House press briefing on Friday: “From Italy, we're seeing another concerning trend. That the mortality in males seems to be twice in every age group of females,” she said.

In another interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Birx added, “Just having the knowledge of that helps us in the United States so we can be very specific in talking to the American people about who to protect and how to protect them.”

In India, out of the 11 recorded deaths, only 1 was a woman. Despite there being no meaty scientific backing, scientists maintain that individuals with underlying health issues are at a higher risk of contracting the deadly virus.

In a way, the countries witnessing a surge in male deaths could reason out the fact that men smoked more (In China, over 50% of its male population smokes, while women pale in comparison—less than 3 percent women smoked.) In Italy, though the number of women smokers (4.5 million) are high, 7 million smokers are male.

Speculations are rife that one of the other reasons could be that a large percentage of women stayed indoors more than men in most countries, and also practiced better hygiene. A similar pattern was observed in Saudi Area, during the SARS and MERS scare.

A study outlined one of the reasons behind the numbers and stressed that the lower fatality rate among women was largely because of them wearing face veils, opted for covered clothing, staying indoors and adopting more health-seeking behaviors.