Putting my responses to @John Crane and @Andrey Vasnev on the top level.

John, Andrey was talking about epigenetics (changes in the genome expression caused by the environment). I don’t know any way that this might happen other than in embryonic development, so he was referring to environmental conditions during gestation. There’s definitely a social aspect to maternal health — just look at the maternal survival rates for whites vs blacks in the US. In deaths per 100,000 live births, it’s white: 14.7, black: 37.1, and (IMO interestingly) hispanic: 11.8. Gotta wonder why hispanic moms are doing better and why that doesn’t map to covid fatalities (and maybe it does: seems a lot of hispanic folks are in ‘essential’ jobs, so there might be more infections)

I’m curious as to whether there’s a maternal mortality differential between the different parts of Switzerland which would indicate different maternal environments. I haven’t been able to find one.

There’s also some possibility we are also seeing actual genetic differences. There’s some evidence of genetic differences in hACE2 receptors. @Shin Jie Yong has been posting a number of quite interesting articles. For this, maybe start here. There’s also a second receptor on epithelial cells that’s somewhat involved with sars-cov-2 latching on — and that receptor is androgen modulated, somewhat explaining the male/female differential