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

[DJLippy]

The stats are showing that men are far more likely to die from Corona than women. It's a 70/30 split according to some estimates.

However when I go out on my daily bike ride I notice far more men in the streets than women. They are very vulnerable to Covid I am concerned. Should we encourage men who are not key workers to stay at home? Would society be able to function?

Many of the key services are staffed by women. The NHS workforce is 74% female and nurses and health care assistant workforces (who provide the most intimate care) are 90% female. Even doctors (who we often imagine as male) are 45% female.

The key workers seem to be split by sex quite a lot. For example - nurses and teachers overwhelmingly female. Drivers, engineers, road crews ect overwhelmingly male. Obviously they are allowed to travel freely. They are doing vital work.

Is there a case to be made (to minimise risk) that men should stay in the house?

Aside from the genetic aspects which make men vulnerable to Covid, stats show that men (as a class) all have much lower personal hygiene than women. Women obey the hand washing rules better than men. Therefore women (as a class) are less likely to spread disease.

Meanwhile police have to concentrate their resources on Covid related issues. Considering that men commit 90% of violent crime maybe it's best we introduce a law which keeps the sex with the greatest propensity for criminality in the house.

I cant help but feel like if the stats were the other way around women would be living under house arrest. Or at least face a lot of social pressure to do so...

Can we have a conversation about this?

True there are more morbidly obese people in ICU, but that's not necessarily a risk factor for covid-19, more than being morbidly obese is a risk factor for morbidity generally and quite possibly dying WITH covid-19 as much as of it.

OK - but I'm not worried about catching covid-19 per se, but about dying from it. If I'm more likely to end up in the ICU/have complications because of obesity, then trying not to be obese seems like a good idea (and yes, it might help reduce the risk of other things in general)

Just like men aren't more likely to catch it (actually, do we know this? I thought they weren't collecting sex data on infections in many countries), but if they do, they are more likely to die.

It does sound like if reducing the burden on the hospitals is the aim, that men, as 2/3rds at least of deaths (and ICU beds? Or just deaths?) should consider themselves higher risk and take extra care.

Canadian data shows 51/49 male/female cases, which is as you'd expect, then 59/41 male/female severe cases.

I think that, in practice, there is a tendency for more men to do the shopping (etc) at present due to the perceived danger, and protecting their OHs. However, this is an interesting perspective on that.

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.

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)

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

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

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 )

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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!

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.

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.