A lot of people simply have stronger immune systems than others. I don’t know that there’s a way to effectively study that, as opposed to what might be some genetic strength or weakness in some people with regard to this virus.
There was an article recently about the lung tissue of men, and Asian people in general (I can’t find a date for the source study, and it seems to be another pre-print on biorxiv.org):
https://theprepared.com/blog/new-study-suggests-2019-ncov-may-hit-men-asian-people-harder/
(I’m not a scientist.)
I think this will target certain ethnicities harder than others. That is not to say others can’t get it.
Too many factors are unknown.
I have certain traits that are common to Asians. I might be more susceptible even though am a Caucasian type of thing.
I might be more prone to catch it by standing in vicinity of spreader while you might stand there and it doesn’t effect you.
I say take precautions just like you should for the flu as we await to see how bad it is.
I saw something similar to your article. It stated the same theory and correlated the same to infection and death rates during the SARS epidemic.