More than 70 percent of Italy’s coronavirus deaths have been among men but scientists there admit they are mystified by the gender gap.

4,500 people in Italy have died of the devastating disease – it announced it had a higher death toll than China – but less than 1,000 of them have been women.
Men are also more likely to pick up the infection in the first place and account for 60% of confirmed cases, according to Italy’s public health research agency.
An earlier analysis found the figures were even higher than 80%of the deaths were in men and just 20% were in women – but the gap has narrowed over time.

Research in China, where the pandemic started and outbreaks are now petering out, shows that at least two-thirds of patients who died were male.