Are women more prone to long term Covid than men?

Women are at a higher risk of developing prolonged Covid than men. However, men are more likely to suffer from severe Covid-19 infections and have higher mortality rates, according to a new study. JAMA study. More specifically, women are 1.31 times more likely to have long-lasting Covid than their male counterparts.

“A review of the literature combined with our data suggests that changes in hormonal levels may partially explain the higher prevalence of prolonged Covid in women younger than 55 years. “A softening in the long-term Covid hazard ratio for women aged 18 to 39 may be explained by the majority of pregnant individuals belonging to this age category,” the authors explained in the study.

“Our data are consistent with published data on post-viral myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia, which are female-predominant disorders with known alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. “, they added. “Numerous studies have shown that chronic conditions, such as autoimmune diseases, osteoporosis, ME/CFS and Alzheimer’s disease, are more prevalent in women compared to men.”

Globally, more than 700 million people have been infected by the coronavirus since the end of 2019, and since the beginning of 2025, resulting in at least seven million deaths. According to Lancetby March 2023, more than 65 million people had been diagnosed with long-term Covid. But some experts argue that Covid has long been under-diagnosed among the masses.

A study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that almost twice as many women have prolonged Covid with almost 7% reporting prolonged Covid symptoms, compared to 4% of men. A 2021 study also found that a higher risk of developing long-term Covid was associated with being a woman, along with other risk factors such as smoking and older age. Another study’s findings claimed that college-educated men had the lowest prevalence of long-term Covid, but women without a college education reported the highest prevalence.

To delve into how gender could potentially affect people’s long-term Covid risks, researchers studied data from over 12,000 adults who had tested positive for Covid-19. Of them, 73% were women. They observed that women from the Omicron and pre-Omicron groups had a significantly higher risk of long-term Covid than men.

“The clinical and public health implications of sex-based differences in the risk of prolonged Covid, particularly based on age, pregnancy and menopausal status, are substantial. It is important to tease apart the role of aging, hormones, inflammatory response, and comorbidities underlying these differential long-term risk profiles of COVID and to identify which groups may benefit from specific treatments,” the researchers concluded.

“Sex steroid-based therapies may be suggested to alleviate long-term symptoms of COVID in women, as has already been suggested for acute COVID-19 in men,” they noted in the study. “Based on the findings of this study, we believe that the sex-based disparity in long-term disease burden due to prolonged COVID may increase in addition to existing postviral sequelae, for example, Epstein-Barr virus, ME/CFS, the disease chronic Lyme, after the Ebola syndrome”.