People with Type O blood less likely to catch coronavirus: study

A new study by several research institutes in China found that people belonging to the O blood group have a lower risk of being infected with the novel coronavirus.

A paper titled “Relationship between the ABO Blood Group and the COVID-19 Susceptibility” which is up for peer review on medrxiv.org says that after examining samples from 1,775 COVID-19 patients from Jinyintan Hospital, which was one of the earliest designated hospitals for treating COVID-19 in Wuhan, the co-authors found the proportion of people with Type O blood in COVID-patients (25.80%) is significantly lower than that in 3,694 people without the disease (33.84%). They determined that people in the Type A blood group has the highest risk of catching the virus.

[File Photos from VCG]

[File Photos from VCG]

The co-authors also discovered similar distribution patterns from samples from 398 patients from another two hospitals in Wuhan and Shenzhen.

The paper claims it is the first study on the connection between blood groups and COVID-19 susceptibility.