Posted for A.Kouvakine

Emanuel, Ezekiel J. “An Unsolved Mystery: Why Do More Men Die of Covid-19?” The New York Times, 02 Nov 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/02/opinion/men-covid-19-deaths.html. 

 

This review of the article “An Unsolved Mystery: Why Do More Men Die of Covid-19?” by Emanuel Ezekiel from the New York Times has some well-written and well-presented aspects. One of these aspects was the reviewer’s ability to give a quick yet informative summary at the beginning of the review. The reviewer does not drag on the summary but explains the entire point of the original article and its summary in just several sentences. “It discusses an interesting dilemma: men being more likely to die of Covid-19. Emanuel started the article off by giving a real-life case of a family of three that all got Covid-19. The mother of the family was worried that she wouldn’t survive it because of the health conditions. However, her husband was the one that almost didn’t make it.” The reviewer also put in a cited fact into the abstract as well, making it stronger. Another well-presented aspect of this review was the reviewer’s relevance paragraph, and how strongly she connected the article’s relevance to real life. I loved how the reviewer discussed Covid-19 as the current real-life issue, and then tied it to the article; explaining how reading the article gives us new and important information that will be very useful for us. It is in general very important to have a good second paragraph, and the review clearly understood this well. “So, being informed on these current day issues might help us be more cautious because we know something that might affect our lives.” The third well-written aspect of this review was reviewers’ critique of the original article. She starts by explaining what she liked about the article and several things that were done well, and then what she thought the author could have included or have done better. The reviewer also includes a quote to back up her claim that the author stated the main cause of the mystery. “Lastly, I really enjoyed the fact that he stated the main cause of this mystery or issue. ‘The medical community needs to be more open to exploring sex differences in disease.’” Overall, the critique was done exactly as it should have been.

However, no review is perfect and there are several things that could have made this article much better. One weakness of this review was that I felt a bit uninformed after reading it. Although a few quotes were used, they were mostly used for backing up claims and stating facts without explanation of where that information was found. It would have been better if the reviewer talked more about why more men die of covid-19 than women, instead of just circulating around the idea and bringing it up without giving further explanation and reasoning. In the critique, the reviewer does mention that not much information about why men are more at risk for the virus was given, but a quote she used mentioned there were several key factors. These key factors were never brought up in the review. “ ‘Still, the reasons men seem to fare worse remain mostly a mystery. Much more research is needed to understand it, and there are most likely several factors at play.’” Another weakness of this review which could have been made better was the length. This article was not too short, but it would have benefited if it was somewhat longer. For example, although there was a lot of explanation and text in the first paragraph, there was not a lot at all following quotes, and if there were this review would have been longer and better. The second paragraph lacks a quote as well and would have excelled with one there. 

I learned some new facts upon reading this review. I had previously heard that more men died of Covid-19 than women but have never read any articles about the topic until now. Nor did I know any facts about that situation, and am very surprised as well as concerned to find out that “‘Globally, the death rate has been about 50 percent higher for men.’ ” In other words, several things I have learned from this review were new as well as interesting to me, and my perception about Covid and the way it affects the two genders has changed.