Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

42 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT Coronavirus twice as deadly for men, study finds By Anuja Vaidya T hough men and women are equally as likely to contract COVID-19, men are far more likely to die from it, according to a study published April 29 in Frontiers of Public Health. Researchers examined a publicly available dataset on 1,056 COVID-19 patients in China. They found that 70 percent of male COVID-19 died compared to 29.7 percent of women, making men 2.4 times more likely to die from the disease. The researchers also examined a dataset of 524 patients with SARS from Beijing, China, in early 2003. The death rate was similarly high- er among men than women. "We recommend that additional supportive care and prompt access to the intensive care unit may be necessary for older male patients," said Dr. Jin-Kui Yang, a study author and physician at Beijing Ton- gren Hospital in China. n COVID-19 kills 13% of people over age 80, study finds By Anuja Vaidya C OVID-10 kills about 13.4 percent of patients age 80 and older compared to 0.3 percent of patients in their 40s, according to a study published in e Lancet Infectious Diseases. Researchers analyzed data for 70,117 COVID-19 cases in mainland China and 689 cases among people evacuated from Wuhan on repatriation flights. Researchers found that the fatality rate among all of those infected with the new virus, including asymptomatic patients, is 0.66 percent. e death rate rose with age, with a death rate of: • 0.3 percent for patients in their 40s • 1.25 percent for those in their 50s • 4 percent for those in their 60s • 8.6 percent for those in their 70s • 13.4 percent for patients 80 years and up. e risk of hospitalization also increased with age, from 1.1 percent of patients in their 20s and 3.4 percent of those in their 30s, to 12 percent of those in their 60s and 18.4 percent of those 80 years and older, STAT reported. e reason for this may lie in understanding our immune system and how it ages. "Older people are not as good at reacting to microorganisms they haven't encountered before," Janko Nikolich-Zugich, MD, PhD, an immunologist and gerontologist at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson, told STAT. "[Older people] just have fewer soldiers deal- ing with attackers we've never experienced before, like the new coronavirus," he said, according to the report. n Recovery guidelines vary widely for COVID-19 patients By Mackenzie Bean P rotocols for when recovered COVID-19 patients can end self-quarantine and resume normal activities differ greatly across the U.S. and other countries, reported The Wall Street Journal. A COVID-19 patient in Denver told WSJ she was instructed to self-quarantine for 10 days and until she did not have a fever for 72 hours. Meanwhile, a patient in Cincinnati was told to stay home for 14 days and until she had no symptoms for 72 hours. The uncertainty around these guidelines in part stems from health experts' rapidly changing understanding of the novel coronavirus and a lack of data about COVID-19's disease progression. "We're in uncharted territory. We really don't know. That's the prob- lem," John Gumina, MD, chairman of family medicine at Neptune City, N.J.-based Jersey Shore University Medical Center, told WSJ. Recovery recommendations may also vary based on a patient's specific case and severity. For example, Australia has three differ- ent sets of self-quarantine guidelines for people with mild cases, patients who require hospitalization and healthcare workers. n

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