Coronavirus Week 112C: Blame Neanderthals?

That's the angle from this piece, which says that 1 in 6 people inherited at least one copy of a Neanderthal gene that makes people more subject to respiratory infections.

Color me skeptical. 

And, the easy way to check this would be to compare Africans, or even African-Americans (and Afro-Brits, etc.) to Caucasians. African-Americans and Afro-Brits will have some Caucasian genes, on average, but they'll still be much lower than Caucasians are, obviously. And, while not controlling for all environmental issues, using African-Americans et al, instead of native Africans, would control for COVID rates, and largely control for international contacts, etc.

Plus, one could move on to this coming winter's flu season and compare its death rates as well.

Color me skeptical right now.

Color me further skeptical of Professor James Davies' claims because:

1. His ratio is actually "could be as many as 1 in 6" which means he doesn't know more precisely;
2. He offers no information, at least in this piece, about how much more susceptible this gene makes people;
3. He offers no information as to whether this is a global susceptibility issue with all respiratory infections, or worse with some types than others.

And, that's just off the top of my head. He's a professor of genomics, so he knows that well enough. He's not a professor of infectious disease.