---
title: "Scientists Still Don’t Know Why COVID-19 Hits Men and Women Differently"
description: "The coronavirus seems to kill more men than women for unknown reasons, but a new data tracker may help scientists get to the bottom of it."
date: "2020-07-09"
modified: "2020-07-09"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/scientists-dont-know-covid19-men-women-differently"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "Pathogens"
  - "Viruses"
tags:
  - "coronavirus"
  - "covid19"
  - "gender"
  - "medicine"
---

# Scientists Still Don’t Know Why COVID-19 Hits Men and Women Differently

![The coronavirus seems to kill more men than women for unknown reasons, but a new data tracker may help scientists get to the bottom of it.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/scientists-dont-know-covid19-men-women-differently.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Pennsylvania National Guard\</em\>*

When the coronavirus pandemic began, doctors quickly realized that the disease seemed to be hitting men harder — and killing them at higher rates — than it did women.

But even now, several months later, scientists still aren't sure why that is, *[Wired ](<https://www.wired.com/story/covid-kills-more-men-than-women-experts-still-cant-explain-why/>)*[reports](<https://www.wired.com/story/covid-kills-more-men-than-women-experts-still-cant-explain-why/>). Researchers at Harvard's GenderSci Lab are trying to get to the bottom of the complicated question, which was made even more difficult by the lack of standardized data and case reports about COVID-19.

"We began by just simply trying to look for the data, and we couldn't find it," Sarah Richardson, a history of science professor who runs the GenderSci lab, told *Wired*. "So we realized that we would have to assemble it on our own."

That resulted in a data tracker, [released last month](<https://www.genderscilab.org/gender-and-sex-in-covid19>), that breaks down coronavirus cases and fatalities in each U.S. state by sex. It also adjusts the rates [by age](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/coronavirus-outbreak-dangerous-elderly>) to correct for each state's varied demographics. With these new tools in hand, the team hopes they'll be able to figure out which factors, whether they're biological, cultural, environmental, or a combination of all three, are behind the disproportionate male death toll.

Scientists suspect estrogen may play a role in protecting against the coronavirus, but also that women may be more likely to have a doctor they see regularly than men — so the reason death rates vary by sex is likely far more complex than one isolated factor.

"Maybe there is some aspect of sex-linked biology playing into this, but it's looking like it's being swamped by contextual social factors," Heather Shattuck-Heidorn, assistant director of the GenderSci Lab, told *Wired*. "The variability in death rates is immense."

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)