Why is the 'covid age' based on the risk level of a healthy white man?

[BewareTheBeardedFatMan]

I've just been reading about covid risk calculators which give you a 'covid age' based on various factors. Apparently the age is what the risk would be for a healthy white man. Why is a healthy white man chosen as the standard? Is there a scientific reason, or is it just that male and white are seen as the default? Why not take the lowest risk group to use as a default (I don't know who that is, but I know it's not men).
Maybe it doesn't matter, but it made me think.

Which calculator tool are you using. If you go on BMA website their calculator has a section for ethnicity.

All the ones I’ve seen have you put in age, sex and ethnicity so not sure why you think it’s only for white males?

I don't think it's only for white males.

The article I was reading says that the covid age that the calculator gives you when you've input all your individual info (sex, age, ethnicity, health and other risk factors etc) is the risk that a healthy white man of that age would have. So if I go and input all my info, as a 40 year old woman and I get an age of 25, say, then my risk would be the same as the risk of a healthy white male aged 25.

(I haven't done a calculator - I just made up the age as an example)

Which article is this? Because it makes no sense for a calculator to gather your sex, age and ethnicity and then not use that information to calculate the result.

Perhaps I'm not being clear. It does take your info into account. It it's gives you an age that does not necessarily match your own. So the age it gives you is what the risk would be if you were a healthy white male.

The article is here alama.org.uk/covid-19-medical-risk-assessment/

And a screenshot below which hopefully makes things clearer that my explanation

Sigh - wrong screenshot. This should make it clear what I'm questioning

Sounds silly but not surprising tbh!

I mean - I guess they have to take some set of people as the standard or how would they define the covid age, but why is it white men who have a higher risk than women for eg?

Man = default. For some bullshit reason.

I guess I know this is the answer. It is shit. Also, I realise that my missing comma in my last post would drive Lynne Truss mad... 'white men, who have a higher risk...'

Thank you for posting that. Yes you are right, it seems the calculator was designed for employers in the U.K. and the “Covid age” they give you on this calculator is the same risk as healthy white man of that age would have. I think they chose that as the baseline to measure from because the majority of workers in the U.K. are white men. It’s pretty standard to take the majority subset as the baseline and then measure the remainder against that baseline.

that calculator came from a occupational health consultancy

white males are more likely to be one of their employees than brown females

The calculator was developed in a country where most persons are white... while men are more affected than women by covid.

They could have started with brown women of colour as the base line profile, but they are a smaller demographic and less at risk than the blokes.

ALAMA = "The Association of Local Authority Medical Advisors (ALAMA) provides a forum for Occupational Health physicians providing services to Local Authorities, including Police and Fire & Rescue Services as well as the NHS, the Civil Service, the Forces, Central Government and Further Education establishments."

It’s not a very good calculator. Just been playing with it.

Oh - so others will have different baselines and so you'll get a different covid age depending on the calculator? I thought they'd all have the same one.

I would expect so. Going to try a bunch of calculators and see what they say....

Ok, I've just looked at the BMA be which uses a healthy white female under 50 as the 'reference population'. Looks like I jumped to an incorrect conclusion based on reading just one thing.

For the same reason that male=default.
Patriarchy innit!

I think that's just statistics though based on what it was aimed at, work places, statistically more employees in the uk are white men than anything else 🤷🏻‍♀️ just a numbers game.

Totally get why you jumped to that conclusion though, let's face it, everything defaults to white men