Inclusion Criteria:  Acute Covid-19 disease (PCR-confirmed or clinically diagnosed with high certainty) Adult males > 18 years of age OR Post-menopausal women (spontaneous amenorrhoea for >12 months in the absence of any other cause)  Exclusion Criteria:  Women:  taking oestrogen supplements or oestrogen receptor antagonists with abnormal genital bleeding with a history of breast cancer with a history of endometrial or ovarian cancer with untreated endometrial hyperplasia  Men:  • taking hormone therapies (e.g. for prostate cancer)  Any subject:  failure to obtain consent taking lamotrigine with a thromboembolic disorder (e.g. Protein C or Protein S deficiency, antithrombin III deficiency) with pre-existing liver or renal disease with known allergy to exogenous oestrogens with a history of porphyria with a history of thromboembolic event including deep vein thrombosis, thromboembolic stroke or pulmonary emboli taking part in another interventional clinical trial