Coronavirus: Blood Type Critical to Infection Risk

Researchers from Wuhan and Shenzhen in China have found that people with blood type A could be more at risk of coronavirus infection, while people with blood type O may be at lower risk. Researchers found people in Wuhan and Shenzhen with type A blood were disproportionately infected by the virus with more severe symptoms while type O people were both less commonly infected and had less severe symptoms.

Among the over 2100 patients studied, the rate of type A blood type among the infected patients was about 6 percent higher than the general population in Wuhan, and the rate of type O infections was about 7 percent lower than the proportion of those with type O blood. Furthermore, among the deaths within the sample, roughly 40% were blood type A, while blood type O people made up only one quarter of the deaths in the study.

Researchers urge that this is still just preliminary research from a small sample, but it is possible in the coming months that people with type A blood will need to take extra precautions above and beyond the rest of the public, but they also caution those with type O blood to not consider themselves immune to the virus as it can still be deadly.

The research is still in the early stages and has not been independently verified by other medical groups, but it is possible that the specific proteins on the surface of the coronavirus can bind to different types of blood sugars present in type A blood, but not in type O blood.