That particular notion has simply not held up, this bug is killing men at a much faster clip than women and smoking history, weight, overall health, and other differences have little to do with it. The only other risk factor that has turned up for most is age over 60.
Women might be infected as much as men, a women's group I frequent is comparing symptom profiles of illnesses, whether or not they were tested, and the same profile is emerging for most: mild fever under 101, nonproductive cough, headache, and feeling drained of energy. The worst symptoms last about 2 weeks and gradually resolve over the third week. Most were refused tests. A few tested positive with this profile, tested because they were over 65.
This doesn't mean that women are exempted from developing severe and occasionally fatal disease, it means that women are likely being undercounted because of an overwhelmed medical system and early scarcity of available tests badly skewing figures in the US.
It looks like considerable research effort needs to be directed into finding out why this affects men more severely on average and kills them in greater numbers.
Eventually, we might get large scale antibody testing that will tell us the true extent of this disease and give us clues as to why some survived with mild symptoms while others developed a rapid and fulminating disease course ending in death, and why so many of the latter were men. That's what it will take to even start studying this as it has developed in the US.
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