Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that in the United States, women account for 45.6 percent of Covid-19 deaths so far and men account for 54.4 percent. (Men make up slightly less than half the U.S. population.) Among Americans ages 65 to 84 — the group at highest risk for severe Covid-19 — the gap is even larger: 57.9 percent of deaths have occurred among men and 42.1 percent among women.
Yale University researchers noted that there are well-established differences in immune responses to infections between men and women…. Men with Covid-19 had higher blood levels of inflammatory proteins that regulate immune responses, for example. This could lead to an overexuberant immune response to the coronavirus.
Other researchers argue that hormonal factors might be at play. Testosterone may tamp down men’s immune response, while estrogen may play a role in women’s tendency to have more immune B cells, which produce antibodies. Estrogen may inhibit the kind of immune cells that are thought to play a role in myocarditis. Still, the reasons men seem to fare worse remain mostly a mystery. Much more research is needed to understand it, and there are most likely several factors at play.
