"Women Are Stronger Than Men Against the COVID-19 Virus"

[Asia Economy Beijing=Special Correspondent Park Sun-mi] Research results from China have shown that men are more vulnerable to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) than women.

According to the Hong Kong South China Morning Post (SCMP) on the 9th, medical staff caring for COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China, claim that women have a higher chance of surviving the deadly coronavirus than men. When infected, women tend to have milder symptoms and a lower mortality rate compared to men.

Chinese medical personnel reported that when observing over 1,000 COVID-19 patients, 70% of the deceased were men. In particular, older men infected with the virus were more likely to fall into a coma and suffer from fatal respiratory diseases. These research findings were also published on the medical preprint platform medRxiv.

Another study conducted in China on 47 confirmed COVID-19 patients found that 83% of those whose condition worsened from severe to critical stages were men, while only 20% of those who recovered and were discharged from the hospital were men. Chinese researchers explained that this gender difference in COVID-19 infection outcomes was not observed during influenza outbreaks.

However, although men are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection than women, more than half of the medical staff caring for COVID-19 patients are women, and it is known that women are experiencing greater mental anxiety during this COVID-19 outbreak. Among the 42,000 medical personnel dispatched by the Chinese central government to Hubei Province, more than half, approximately 28,000, are women.

According to a recent survey conducted by researchers at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou involving 5,400 medical staff including doctors and nurses, a significant number of women reported experiencing anxiety, depression, and insomnia symptoms due to COVID-19. The proportion of female medical staff reporting anxiety was 2.4% higher than that of males, while depression and insomnia symptoms were 6.7% and 4.4% higher in women, respectively. This survey was conducted last month and has been submitted to the international medical journal The Lancet.

Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed his gratitude to female medical staff for their dedication to treating COVID-19 patients on the occasion of International Women's Day (March 8) the day before.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.