Are more men dying from coronavirus?
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 4 April 2020
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Tim Harford and Ruth Alexander examine the statistics around the world to see if more men are dying as a result of Covid-19, and why different sexes would have different risks. Plus is it true that in the US 40% of hospitalisations were of patients aged between 20 and 50?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to more or less on the BBC World Service. |
| 0:03.7 | We are the programme that sorts out the April Fools |
| 0:07.1 | from the April Facts. |
| 0:09.2 | One of the many curious aspects of the coronavirus pandemic |
| 0:12.6 | is that men seem to be more susceptible to it |
| 0:15.2 | than women. |
| 0:16.5 | Why could that be? |
| 0:17.9 | I'm asking for a friend, of course. |
| 0:19.3 | And Ruth Alexander has been looking at the statistics. |
| 0:22.2 | Hello Ruth, what have you found? |
| 0:23.8 | Well, data on the 25 countries |
| 0:26.0 | with the largest number of infections |
| 0:27.6 | have been helpfully gathered together |
| 0:29.7 | by the Global Health 5050 Gender Equality Initiative |
| 0:33.8 | at University College London, UCL. |
| 0:36.5 | Now, not all of those countries break down the cases by gender, |
| 0:40.6 | but 12 do. |
| 0:42.1 | And in all 12, the majority of those who have died |
| 0:45.3 | from the coronavirus are male. |
| 0:48.1 | In China, where COVID-19 first broke out, |
| 0:51.2 | women made up 49% of confirmed cases and men 51%. |
| 0:56.4 | So no story there. |
... |
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