New Blog—Why Paying Attention to Sex and Gender Will Advance our Knowledge on COVID-19

Authors: Bonnie Lee (BSc, PhD student) and Liisa A.M. Galea (PhD, Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Department of Psychology. Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, University of British Columbia)

Every day we learn more about the novel coronavirus (severed acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2: SARS-CoV-2). During these early months of the worldwide outbreak, it has become apparent that although men and women may be similarly susceptible to the virus, males are more likely to become severely ill developing the disease, known as COVID-19 that comes from SARS-CoV-2, and worse, have a higher mortality rate. Both biological (sex) and environmental (let’s loosely think of this as gender) factors likely contribute to this sex bias, although most of our focus here will be on the biological contributions.