Who is most at risk of dying from Wuhan coronavirus? New research offers clues

As of today, the Wuhan coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, has claimed 1,873 lives, reports CNN. Most of those deaths have occurred in China, where the outbreak is believed to have originated. As of the time of this writing, 73,325 people are believed to have been infected by the virus, which has now spread to 25 counties worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Outside of China, there have only been three confirmed deaths, according to WHO statistics, which were last updated on February 17.

But just who is the most likely to suffer a fatality from the disease? A major new analysis from China sheds some light on that, reports CNBC. The analysis looked at the records of 44,672 confirmed cases of the coronavirus from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC), as well as 16,186 suspected cases. Its findings?

Males are more likely to died from the coronavirus than females are. While the coronavirus has an overall fatality rate of 2.35% from the CCDC records analyzed, males in the group had a fatality rate of 2.8% while females had a fatality rate of just 1.7%.

Bottom line: It looks like the Wuhan coronavirus is killing men more often than women. That’s despite the COVID-19 virus infecting men and women almost equally. Of the records studied, 51% of people infected by the coronavirus were men, while 49% were women.

However, experts were quick to point out to CNBC that the higher death rate among males might not be down to biology. It could be that social or environmental factors made those men more susceptible to dying from the disease.

But no matter if you’re a man or a woman, everyone can take the same precautions limiting their risk of exposure to the disease. On their website, the World Health Organization advises everyone to avoid people suffering from acute respiratory infections, frequent hand-washing, and covering the nose and mouth while coughing or sneezing.