Men should stay at home to minimise risk. Can we have this conversation?

So some couples might decide that the man should go out shopping, while the more vulnerable woman stays at home, nice and safe.

DH does all the shopping now as I breastfeed. Idea is he can self-isolate in the spare room if he gets symptoms - this is the best way we found to protect our DS who isn’t the biggest baby and would probably be very unwell if he caught it.

My husband has taken to getting eggs as the excuse for getting the newspaper on Saturdays.

So some couples might decide that the man should go out shopping, while the more vulnerable woman stays at home, nice and safe.

This couple has! Don't judge everyone as thoughtless or sexually stereotyping.

I am getting old and have a heart condition, and he is fifteen years younger than I am. So he does the shopping, wearing a face-mask (a tee-shirt one with paper towel between the two layers, which will afford him 80% protection and also if he happens to have cv give 100% protection to everyone else -- why are more people not wearing these?), and when he has brought the shopping home he leaves his shoes on the mat outside, washes his hands immediately, puts the paper towel in the bin and all his clothes and the mask into the washing machine, and goes straight to have a bath.

This has been talked through and thoroughly planned so we haven't had to think about it again on the two occasions he has gone out shopping since 15th March. Making the shopping list on the other hand takes about two days, because it has to be incredibly detailed: he is so mortified if he gets something that is a bit wrong, or fails to fetch one of the things on the list. Instructions are essential... ("If not this, then that if possible; don't worry if there is no the other" and so on.)

Today he got eggs! The right sort and everything! Good hunter-gatherer!

There are two interesting questions here-
why are more men more ill?
and
What do we do about it?

Women are expected to change their behaviour with regard to vulnerability to sexual violence, so it's not unreasonable to wonder if men should change their behaviour in this case.

Men are more likely to die immediately. I imagine unhealthy women are probably more likely to die within 5 years from pulmonary fibrosis and other nasty side effects. Both men and women should take adequate care to protect themselves.

Looking at the percentage, I’m certainly surprised it’s not being emphasised more.

On the topic of men staying in, I can’t be neutral, I’d bloody love that!

Not sure ... what I read was re the difference between people with various autoimmune conditions, the risk was if there was immunosuppressive treatment not the condition itself.

There's probably something like you need a decently functioning immune system to fight it off in the early stages and to avoid the secondaries, but not so much as to trigger the cytokine storm if that's happening. There's going to be lots of factors affecting the course of it for any individual like initial viral load and then what secondary bugs are present.

ErrolTheDragon

Then why are pregnant women at lower risk, particularly according to data from China, when they are immunosuppressed? Would you not assume they would be at higher risk, as they were in SARS? Why also is hydroxychloroquine being looked at as a possible treatment?

Cytokine storm is an over reaction of the immune system so maybe being on immunosuppressants puts you at higher risk of a secondary bacterial infection, which I believe is very common amongst those in ITU, rather than a higher risk from COVID19?

Will be very interesting to see more in depth data as it comes out.

Not the only research suggesting it as a possibility though.

Turbulent Gas Clouds and Respiratory Pathogen EmissionsPotential Implications for Reducing Transmission of COVID-19

LydiaBourouiba,PhD1

JAMA.Published online March 26, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4756

The data from China indicated that being on immunosuppressants is a risk factor, whereas having an autoimmune condition (eg Hashimoto's thyroiditis) for which the treatment isn't an immunosuppressant wasn't.

Medium.com articles by an 'Entrepreneur, building clouds in all forms and shapes' don't seem like a reliable source.

The source seems to be from some computerised physics software, which is nice and all, but does not translate into 'jogging round the block is a high risk' activity, there are a whole bunch of steps in between 'our computer model suggests particles are in the air for several metres' and 'you are remotely likely to catch covid-19 during outdoor exercise'

Not saying that it's impossible, but it seems just as likely you'd trip over a pothole and break your leg tbh.

Early on, it was being suggested that death was being caused by a cytokine storm which would possibly suggest that having a less reactive immune system would be protective. Given that women are more likely to have autoimmune conditions, are they more likely to be on immunosuppressants? If so, are they actually a protective factor against death from COVID19? Interestingly, they are trialling chloroquine as a possible treatment which is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory arthritis.

Hopefully, data will be getting better and more in depth quickly.

Walking or jogging round the block observing social distancing rules isn't going to kill them.

Really?

medium.com/@jurgenthoelen/belgian-dutch-study-why-in-times-of-covid-19-you-can-not-walk-run-bike-close-to-each-other-a5df19c77d08

In terms of symptoms not being taken seriously... I wonder how many women aren’t taken seriously and end up giving birth in a car (nearly happened to me )

I honestly think it’s victim blaming to say it is caused by men being dirty (what you really mean by saying having worse hygiene)

Hand hygiene in men is a real problem though - perhaps this will improve it.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-handwashing/hands-down-men-worse-at-bathroom-hygiene-that-prevents-coronavirus-idUSKBN20S2N7]

From the American CDC via that article:

"only 31% of men and 65% of women washed their hands"

from another study in the article:

The study found 14.6% of men did not wash their hands at all after using the bathroom and 35.1% wet their hands but did not use soap, compared to 7.1% and 15.1% of women, respectively.

Now, I'm not sure that matters as much as we've been lead to believe (although I'm surprised to find myself thinking that), if men and women are catching it equally actually.

There is still the view amongst some people that men are the protector, they need to look after and protect their more vulnerable wives.
So some couples might decide that the man should go out shopping, while the more vulnerable woman stays at home, nice and safe.
I don't think this is the case, though, in large numbers because there are still many many women out shopping.

(And when I said young women had died, I was including mothers in their 30’s which is a sobering thought)

Above argument doesn’t stack up when 2/3 of ventilator patients are male - presumably this is decided based on clinical parameters not patient behaviour. There appears to be the been struggling to fight it, need ventilator in second week group and the acute onset, immune system overdrive group who need ventilator early in course of illness. There are also people who have died at home because they didn’t realise how ill they were. I don’t think sex/gender behaviour could account for such a massive difference, genetics/hormones/cellular factors must be at play. Many animal diseases affect one sex more than the other.

Well, obviously. No one is campaigning seriously to curfew men. It's a discussion among feminists, about something sex related, posing some questions about responses and ideas. It's exactly what a feminist focused message board should be for, as much as I laugh like a drain fending off pudding based trolls.

God no! Many men need exercise to stop them letting off steam in destructive ways, sadly. Walking or jogging round the block observing social distancing rules isn't going to kill them. In fact it will strengthen their immune systems.

No there should not be laws further restricting any class of people, including men. And I do not for a second agree with the lame justification “if women were higher risk there would be a law restricting us..”

We do not know why men are dying at twice the rate of women. Most of the deaths are in the over 70 age group. I honestly think it’s victim blaming to say it is caused by men being dirty (what you really mean by saying having worse hygiene). More black people in the US are dying than white people, would you seriously think for a second it’s because they are more dirty? No because that would be racist. Can you not see how sexist you are being?

It is very possible and plausible that more men are dying because of societal sexism- toxic masculinity keeps men from seeking medical assistance until they are in worse shape than women. Also structural sexism- women and children are viewed as more vulnerable and men stronger so critical care intervention is delayed for them compared to women (they’re all “fighters” like BoJo and can be in ICU with “no breathing assistance” rah! Go strong men).

I have considered this. There are other risk factors, too, though.

I'm taking this thread as a theoretical debate not in any way a serious suggestion!

There are various reasons why women are likely to be lower severity if infected - but it's not been well studied: they are known to lower risk of influenza deaths for example - possibly due to oestrogen impacting immune system and creating a stronger response (hence, I think, women have a stronger tendency to autoimmune diseases). Gender based behaviours (e.g. ?greater cleanliness/handwashing; less risk taking behaviours) and sex based attributes (eg oestrogen, more chromosomal info due to XX vs XY) may play a part...from my VERY minimal understanding.

Caroline Crianez Perez and others are campaigning for better sex segregated data to help us understand more - currently many countries are not collecting data in a sex segregated way... (inc UK)

Where I live there is total lockdown ,very different to what is happening in UK,where we see mainly men out exercising. At the beginning I thought that the reason this was allowed in Uk was to give them alternatives to being at home and possibly increasing violence to women and give women a break. It will be interesting to see how the sOuth American idea of men able to leave the house on alternate days works out. I suspect that in Uk as always men will continue to work exercise and so on while women manage everything else.