Importance: The recent outbreak of Novel Coronavirus (
SARS-CoV-2) Disease MESHD (
COVID-19 MESHD) has put the world on alert, that is reminiscent of the SARS outbreak seventeen years ago. Objective: We aim to compare the severity and mortality between male and female patients with both
COVID-19 MESHD and SARS, to explore the most useful prognostic factors for individualized assessment. Design, Setting, and Participants: We extracted the data from a case series of 43 hospitalized patients we treated, a public data set of the first 37 cases died of
COVID-19 MESHD in Wuhan city and 1019 survived patients from six cities in China. We also analyzed the data of 524 patients with SARS, including 139
deaths MESHD, from Beijing city in early 2003. Main Outcomes and Measures: Severity and mortality. Results: Older age and high number of comorbidities were associated with higher severity and mortality in patients with both
COVID-19 MESHD and SARS. The percentages of older age ([≥]65 years) were much higher in the deceased group than in the survived group in patients with both
COVID-19 MESHD (83.8 vs. 13.2, P<0.001) and SARS (37.4 vs. 4.9, P<0.001). In the case series, men tend to be more serious than women (P=0.035), although age was comparable between men and women. In the public data set, age was also comparable between men and women in the deceased group or the survived group in patients with
COVID-19 MESHD. Meanwhile, gender distribution was exactly symmetrical in the 1019 survivors of
COVID-19 MESHD. However, the percentage of male were higher in the deceased group than in the survived group (70.3 vs. 50.0, P=0.015). The gender role in mortality was also observed in SARS patients. Survival analysis showed that men (hazard ratio [95% CI] 1.47 [1.05-2.06, P= 0.025) had a significantly higher mortality rate than women in patients with SARS. Conclusions and Relevance: Older age and male gender are risk factors for worse outcome in patients with COVID. While men and women have the same susceptibility to both SARS-CoV-2 and
SARS-CoV MESHD, men may be more prone to have higher severity and mortality independent of age and susceptibility.