05/02/2020 - 16:20
- Clarín.com
- Society
Coronavirus is said to discriminate by age and that 15% of severe cases and 5% who die are mostly male patients . But since the fine print of these figures varies between countries and Argentina has comparatively “few” infected and “few” deaths, it is difficult to draw statistically sound conclusions. So much so that the fact that " men get worse " or that " they die more " turns out to be light sentences in light of some details that can be extracted from the daily parts. This is the case of the narrowing of the "gender gap" among those killed by coronavirus .
Almost two months after the first death from coronavirus in Argentina, the change in the numbers of men and women who did not survive Covid-19 occurred in tune with a significant change in the proportion of infections , which in just one month passed from 70% -30% for men and women, respectively, to a tied 50% -50% .
Thus, in the second week of April (when the Ministry of Health of the Nation began to report the difference by gender in fatal cases), the “they / they” ratio was 73% -27% . The following week (April 17), with 122 deaths, the ratio changed to 71% -29%. A week later, at 67% -33%. And finally this Thursday, the deceased men fell proportionally to 61%, leaving women 39% of deaths from Covid.
Evolution of deaths by sex
Source: Own data and Ministry of Health Infographic: Clarín
It stands to reason that if more women were proportionally infected in the last month, there will be a kind of "translation" to the fatality figures. But affirming that again leads to the question Clarín asked a few days ago: why are more women becoming infected with coronavirus, compared to what happened at the beginning of the pandemic in the country.
The answer for the experts is uncertain, but no one is entirely encouraged (and this medium spoke with several authorized sources) to rule out the influence of female participation in tasks that are essential today : cleaning of public and private spaces, health personnel ("They" represent almost 70%) and care tasks in places where the exposure is also great, such as nursing homes.
A renowned medical source who asked to protect her name shed light on the issue by adding that “on top of that, women are longer-lived and in nursing homes there are possibly more female residents. That data cannot be ignored ”.
It is difficult to make clear statements. Global evidence indicates that the virus affects men and women equally , so - aside from previous assessments - it makes sense that local figures have been "sorted" into a kind of "gender equality" in terms of the infected.
As for severe cases and deaths, the questions also remain many. Each country has its own figures ranging from a ratio of 68% -32% (men / women) in Italy, for example, to 53% -47% in South Korea. It is variable.
"Be 70% -30% as 60% -40%, death is still higher in men," explained Florencia Cahn, president of the Argentine Society of Vaccines (SAVE). However, he clarified and said that "the reason isuncertain. And, in fact, not much can be deduced from these percentages. Postulating that men have higher mortality is an unproven theory yet . We cannot draw conclusions in so few days. "
A nurse from the Belgrano Hospital (Buenos Aires province), on a work break. EFE / Juan Ignacio Roncoroni
In addition to hormonal differences, one of the hypotheses investigated regarding the “female discrimination” applied by the most severe coronavirus refers to a constitutive issue: the presence of the enzyme ACE 2 , a receptor that acts as a “key” to that the virus easily enters human cells.
“The point is that man seems to have more of these enzymes , but it is something that is under study. For now, the risk factor that offers the most evidence is age. In the city of Buenos Aires, the mortality rate in children under 60 years was 0.87% against 14.7% in the elderly, "said Arnaldo Casiró, head of Infectology at Hospital Álvarez.
“But any opinion that one gives at the moment could be false. When we started the AIDS issue years ago, we didn't even know what a virus was and we wondered why all the patients were male and gay. Only when it became known that it was a virus did we begin to understand the question minimally: gender and sexual orientation had nothing to do with it, "justified Casiró, adding:" In the coronavirus it is all very new. The number of tests and patients that we have in Argentina do not allow us, for now, to put together a clear epidemiological scenario ”.
What is Coronavirus? How is it spread and what are its symptoms?
Watch the specialThus, the doctor concluded an eloquent image: “The real photo will only be in a few months. The one we see changes week to week. Today, taking a picture of the coronavirus is like wanting to take a picture of the sky. You see white and light blue ”.
