According to a new paper published on March 3 in the journal PLOS Genetics, those with Type A blood are more likely to get severely sick from COVID-19.
In the genetic study, scientists screened more than 3,000 blood proteins to determine which ones actually caused positive or adverse COVID-19 outcomes.
Severity was defined as a COVID-19 case in which a patient required hospitalization and/or respiratory assistance—or actually led to the patient’s death. By the time the scientists were done, they had whittled the number of potential protein suspects down to just over a dozen—and one of them happens to be a protein that determines your blood type.
“Our study does not link precise blood group with risk of severe COVID-19 but since previous research has found that proportion of people who are group A is higher in COVID-19 positive individuals, this suggests that blood group A is more likely candidate for follow-up studies,” Christopher Hübel from King’s College London, co-last author on the study, told New Atlas.