LAUSR

COVID-19 with respect to gender. It specifically attempts to understand the influence of pandemics on gender roles and relationships along with the direct effects on the physical, psychological and social well-being of men and women. Materials and Methods The author has employed narrative review as this method facilitates obtaining a broader perspective on the topic, in which selected studies are summarized, themes are identified and analysis is conducted based on relevant theoretical constructs. Additionally, 'status-quo' review is a type of review which delineates the most current research for a given research question. Owing to scarcity of literature on gendered impact of COVID-19 during 4 the study period, a 'status-quo narrative review' was considered the appropriate method. Electronic databases Google Scholar, Science Direct and PubMed were searched using the key terms “Novel Coronavirus”, “COVID-19”, “nCoV”, “Gender”, “Men”, “Women”, “Gender Equality”, along with their various combinations. Inclusion criteria comprised of listed published or unpublished articles, editorials, letters, in English language from March to August 2020. The flowchart of the search strategy is shown in figure 1. The initial search yielded over 80,000 documents, including a plethora of editorials, commentaries and letters relevant to the research question which were majorly included Introduction COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. Epidemiological studies have shown that biological differences between the genders have an impact on the immune responses and course of the disease as males have been disproportionately affected with greater 1 severity and mortality. Similar to the effects of previous epidemics like Ebola and SARS, the current health crisis too has brought immense changes to the roles and relationships within social institutions. The health sector is directly affected, with frontline workers exposing themselves to the risk of contracting COVID-19. Economic disruptions and subsequent job losses also are major concerns. The psycho-social dimensions include caregiver burden 2 and effects of the quarantine on family dynamics. 3 According to Lancet's report , there is a lack of gender analysis of the impact, policies and programs related to the pandemic. The main objective of this review is to explore and synthesize the currently existing literature on the differential impact of Gendered Impact and Implications of COVID-19: A Narrative Global Status-Quo Review Taskeen Mansoor