The Majority Of Coronavirus Victims Are Men, And The Virus Is Hitting Adults Far Harder Than It Is Hitting Children

themostimportantnews.com ^ | February 11, 2020 | Michael Snyder

[Red Badger]

This coronavirus outbreak just keeps getting weirder. With each passing day the number of confirmed cases and the number of deaths continue to rise, but not all demographic groups are being affected equally. That seems very odd, but it may also give researchers important clues about how to fight this very deadly virus. On Tuesday, global health officials finally gave this mysterious new coronavirus an official name. From now on they will be calling it “COVID-19”, but I doubt that moniker will really catch on with the general public. In any event, what everybody can agree on is the fact that this disease has the potential to rapidly spread all over the planet, and let us hope that the extreme measures that are being taken to prevent it from getting out of control will be enough.

One of the things that we have just learned about this virus is that it does not seem to affect men and women equally.

According to two different studies, it appears that men are significantly more likely to get infected than women are…

More men than women seem to contract coronavirus, several recent studies of patients at the heart of the outbreak suggest.

Among the Wuhan University hospital patients documented in one study, 54 percent were men. Another earlier study of hospitalized patients was made up of 68 percent men, Business Insider reported.

Scientists do not currently understand exactly why this is happening.

But researchers have pointed out that there was a similar pattern during the SARS outbreak…

The 2003 outbreak of SARS struck more women among younger adults (20-54), but was more prevalent among men in older ages (55 and up).

When University of Iowa researchers exposed male and female mice to the virus, the males were more likely to contract SARS.

Could there be something about male physiology that makes us more vulnerable to a coronavirus outbreak?

This is something that scientists should investigate further.

Another thing about COVID-19 that seems quite strange is the fact that children seem to be a lot less vulnerable to the disease. The following comes from CNBC…

The new coronavirus that has already killed more people than the 2003 SARS epidemic appears to be sparing one population group: kids.

Of the more than 43,100 people it’s infected since Dec. 31, World Health Organization officials say the majority are over 40 years old and it’s hitting those with underlying health conditions and the elderly particularly hard.

Some researchers are theorizing that a lot of kids are actually getting infected but that their stronger immune systems are preventing severe symptoms from manifesting…

The apparent lack of children among confirmed coronavirus cases could also be because they are getting infected but developing more mild symptoms and aren’t being reported to local authorities, according to Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. World health officials say they are working to improve surveillance of the disease and expect more mild cases to be reported. It could be a while before we have a clear picture on cases, Lipsitch said.

With any disease, those that have weaker or compromised immune systems are always going to be more vulnerable.

And if this outbreak starts to spiral out of control all over the globe, the number of victims could potentially be absolutely staggering.

In fact, Hong Kong epidemiologist Gabriel Leung is warning that 60 to 80 percent of the entire global population could potentially end up catching this virus if urgent action is not taken…

Prof Gabriel Leung, the chair of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, said the overriding question was to figure out the size and shape of the iceberg. Most experts thought that each person infected would go on to transmit the virus to about 2.5 other people. That gave an “attack rate” of 60-80%.

“Sixty percent of the world’s population is an awfully big number,” Leung told the Guardian in London, en route to an expert meeting at the WHO in Geneva on Tuesday.

The official death rate is still fairly low, but if billions of people end up catching this bug it could result in tens of millions of deaths…

With the global population currently at more than 7 billion (7,577,130,400), that means that the virus has the potential to infect more than 4 billion (4,546,278,240) if Professor Leung is correct and its spread continues to accelerate.

And if one percent of those people die, that means there will be more than 45 million deaths.

A death toll of that magnitude would put this crisis on par with the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.

Once again, I want to stress that there is absolutely no guarantee that such a scenario will actually unfold. The SARS outbreak in 2003 was eventually brought under control, and my hope is that this outbreak will eventually be brought under control as well.

But even if this outbreak ends tomorrow, life is not going to go back to normal. In fact, the truth is that our problems are just getting started.

As far as COVID-19 is concerned, we would be in far better shape if the Chinese had locked down the entire city of Wuhan much earlier. By waiting as long as they did, it allowed five million potential carriers to leave Wuhan for other areas of China…

EXPERTS fear it is too late to stop the deadly spread of coronavirus as FIVE MILLION people left the outbreak epicentre before it was even put on lockdown.

Millions continued to pour out of Wuhan – now dubbed zombieland – long after the first reports about a deadly new virus broke.

Now there are confirmed cases in every single province of China, and we will wait to see if this virus ultimately spreads all over the globe.

Thankfully, world health officials are taking this threat very seriously. On Tuesday, the head of the WHO warned that “a virus is more powerful in creating political, economic and social upheaval than any terrorist attack”…

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva the vaccine lag meant “we have to do everything today using available weapons” and said the epidemic posed a “very grave threat”.

“To be honest, a virus is more powerful in creating political, economic and social upheaval than any terrorist attack,” Dr Ghebreyesus said.

And he is right.

This virus has the potential to absolutely turn the entire planet upside down.

I am still hoping that does not happen, but I am also encouraging all of my readers to get prepared for the worst.

[grey_whiskers]

A poster, InklingBooks
over on a thread at Instapundit, writes:

I’m not a doctor, but based on this remark in the Live Science article about the relatively few children who’re victims of the Corona virus I will hazard a guess that extends what it says in this remark.

The innate immune system is the first line of defense against pathogens. Cells in that system respond immediately to foreign invaders. (The adaptive immune system, by contrast, learns to recognize specific pathogens, but takes longer to join the battle.) If the innate immune response is stronger in children exposed to 2019 nCoV, they may fight off infection more readily than adults, suffering only mild symptoms.

https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.livescience.com%2Fwhy-kids-missing-coronavirus-cases.html%3AdCiN90AlcxcILg0U95Xc0zMfLKI&cuid=4235850

It seems sensible to assume that the innate immune system protecting a child’s lungs must be more effective than that in adults. Their breathing passages are shorter and their adaptive immune system has yet to learn what pathogens to fight. That stronger innate immune response (attacking anything foreign) may give them added protection against a virus like the Corona.

One peculiarity of the Corona virus is that its infection must plant itself well inside our lungs. Throat swabs often fail to detect it. That contrasts with many other viral infections that first settle in our throats and then move to our lungs. A throat infection is uncomfortable but not deadly and gives our adaptive immune system to prepare to fight it before it reaches our lungs, where it can be lethal. Because the Corona virus bypasses our throat and infects our lungs directly, the response of our adaptive immune system is delayed.

Of course, there’s also another factor suggested by the article, that the immune system of adults overreacts to a Corona virus infection, making matters worse.

Adults are also more susceptible to a detrimental immune response that causes a condition called acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), said Dr. James Cherry, a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine. A complicated imbalance of immune cell activity sends inflammation into the lungs into overdrive, ultimately causing fluid to fill the alveoli, or air sacs, according to research published in the journal Annals of Translational Medicine

ARDS is the primary way that the Corona kills.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

Also consider Antibod-Dependent -Enhancement, which I found explained on another post from ZeroHedge (I know, I know) and which I posted here:
http://freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=3814901,64

[Battle Axe]

See Medcram videos # 1-15. The factor is smoking. Almost half of the men in China smoke, only 1.8% women. It's not men and it's not Chinese, it's smoking.

[9YearLurker]

Are men more the ones out and about in Chinese culture? Certainly that could account for a 54% majority. A 68% majority? Likely not so much.

[Reily]

Adults (particularly Asian men!) are also more likely to smoke.

[null and void]

Bring Out Your Dead

Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.

The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.

So far the false positive rate is 100%.

At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.

*sigh* Such is life, and death...

If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.

[11th_VA]

2019 nCoV - You mean the Wuhan Virus ?

[yldstrk]

Maybe it is a manufactured virus from a biolab? Maybe it was part of China’s plan to take over countries by targeting their military members who are mostly male. Pure speculation on my part but who knows what this is exactly?

[DuncanWaring]

Given the level of air pollution in China, even those who don’t use tobacco are, in practice, smokers.

[AppyPappy]

It’s funny how that works. When the Spanish Flu came along, smoking was very common place. They gave patients aspirin for the fever and they started bleeding from the lungs.

[11th_VA]

Adults (particularly Asian men!) are also more likely to smoke.

BINGO - the virus attacks the lungs; any one with heart or lung issues that restricts oxygenation, is at risk ...

[z3n]

Men are more likely to shake hands than women, and adults more than children.

Just a thought.

[Red Badger]

Yes that’s it’s ‘official’ name.

The WHO said yesterday that they would not call it by a name of a geographical location, or an ANIMAL, because it might OFFEND somebody..........................

[Red Badger]

Men go out in the world to work and women stay home with the children.................

[bigbob]

And how many have died who are not Chinese?

Genetics.

[GulfMan]

What you lookin' at ...

[khelus]

re: “The WHO said yesterday that they would not call it by a name of a geographical location, or an ANIMAL, because it might OFFEND somebody..........................”

***

The virus has been found in feces
“The stool and both respiratory specimens later tested positive by rRT-PCR for 2019-nCoV”
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2001191?query=featured_home

So if has been postulated, part of the the reason the virus has hit China so much harder than the rest of the world is that it is being spread by fecal transmission given China’s poor sanitation and accompanying poor personal hygiene habits, WHO will not mention for fear of OFFENDING.

Nothing like wokeness over ruling facts /sarc

[null and void]

"From now on they will be calling it “COVID-19”, but I doubt that moniker will really catch on with the general public."

I would have gone with CORVID.

A corvid is a bird in the family that includes crows and ravens, birds often associated with carrion and death...

[Red Badger]

The WHO said yesterday that they would not call it by a name of a geographical location, or an ANIMAL, because it might OFFEND somebody..........................

[grey_whiskers]

“MORBID CORVID” — sounds like a name for a cartoon character. Not Merrie Melodies, but Melancholy Melodies...