A person’s blood type does not affect the risk of developing severe Covid-19 or being hospitalized for the infection, according to one study.
Previous studies have indicated that people with type A blood are more likely to catch the coronavirus.
To determine if this was true, U.S. doctors analyzed the health records of more than 100,000 people who took a Covid-19 test in Utah, Idaho and Nevada between March and November 2020.
Cross-reference of their Covid status with the blood group revealed that there was no association between them, discrediting the previous findings.
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According to a study, people are more likely to get the coronavirus if they have type A blood. Laboratory-based analysis investigated previous reports that blood groups affect a person’s susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection
Blood type is a trait determined by a person’s DNA and depends on the versions of genes inherited from a person’s parents.
These genes dictate the presence of antigens on the surface of red blood cells, the donut-shaped vessels that carry oxygen around the body to the arteries and veins.
Antigens are protruding proteins and there are two versions, A and B, that are found on the surface of red blood cells, also known as erythrocytes.
Everyone has A, B, A and B, or none. Therefore, these people will have blood group A, B, AB and O, respectively, and this is known as the ABO blood group system.
Another antigen in the cells, called Rhesus, is positive or negative and this determines whether a person is, for example, positive or negative.
Blood groups vary by geography and ethnicity, but in the UK, the most common group is O positive, followed by A positive.
Previous studies had found that people with type A blood have a higher risk of contracting the virus.

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has a higher affinity for other cells, such as those found in the respiratory tract, that express a specific type A molecule called an antigen.
One study suggested that type A people have more receptors to which the virus can bind, making them more susceptible.
But Dr. Jeffrey Anderson of the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City performed the most complete and controlled analysis to date.
“With contrasting reports from China, Europe, Boston, New York and elsewhere, we initiated a comprehensive and prospective case-control study that included more than 11,000 people who were recently infected with SARS-CoV-2, and not we found no ABO associations with susceptibility or severity of the disease, ”the study’s authors write in their article, published today in JAMA Network Open.
“Given the broad and prospective nature of our study and its strongly null results, we believe that significant SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19 associations with ABO groups are unlikely,” they add.
Researchers cannot explain why previous studies came to different conclusions, but they cite several factors that may have led to previous results.
They say that pure chance, publication bias, genetic differences, geography, and variants may have led to biased data indicating that some blood groups are at higher risk.
However, the study found that while the blood type does not, other factors increase the risk of Covid-19.
These include being a man, being older and also people who did not belong to the white ethnic group.
“Among individuals with Covid-19, hospitalization was associated with gender and male age,” the researchers write. “Admission to an ICU was also associated with male age and gender.”
The data also found that non-white people, including African Americans; American or Alaska Native Indians; Native Hawaiians or Pacific Islanders; Asians; and people who did not reveal their ethnicity are more likely to test positive.
However, there was no link between these people and the severity of the disease.