People with these blood types may be immune from COVID, study finds

You’ve read a lot about what puts you at increased risk for having a severe case of COVID-19, from smoking to carrying extra weight to going over a certain age. But now there is finally good news for a third of Americans. A new large-scale study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine has found that your risk of catching COVID-19 is reduced if you have a particular blood type. Read on to find out if you are safe, and to learn about riskier behaviors, know that it only takes this time to get COVID in a room with someone who has it.

Read the original article on Better life.

Researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, looked at the test results of 225,556 Canadians who were tested for COVID-19 between January 15 and June 30. They looked at both the likelihood that a patient was likely to contract COVID-19 and how seriously they were likely to become ill (or even die from it) if they did. The results were remarkable: Taking into account demographics and comorbidities, the risk of diagnosing COVID-19 was 12% lower for people with type O blood, and the risk of severe COVID-19 or death was 13% lower, compared to those with Blood Groups A, AB or B.

O is the most common blood group in the United States: 37% of white Americans fall into this category, according to the American Red Cross, with figures rising to 47% among African Americans, 53% among Latin Americans and 39%. Asian Americans. And for more signs that you might have contracted the virus, see If you have this symptom, there’s an 80% chance that you have COVID.

These four main blood groups – A, AB, B and O – can be Rh-positive or Rh-negative, which means there are 8 blood groups in total. When the researchers looked at this second classification, there was more good news: People with any Rh negative blood group are also “somewhat protected” from the virus.

“An Rh− status seemed protective against infection with SARS-CoV-2,” wrote the study authors. In addition, “Rh− had a [adjusted relative risk] serious illness or death from COVID-19. “

If a patient was O-negative, they were particularly protected from the novel coronavirus, the authors noted. “The Rh− blood group was protective against SARS-CoV-2 infection, especially for those who were O-negative,” they wrote.

Unfortunately, this is a much rarer blood group. The American Red Cross reports that 8% of White Americans, 4% of African Americans, 4% of Latinx Americans, and 1% of Asian Americans are O-negative. And to learn more about the state of the pandemic, see These 2 places could close soon, warns the White House official.

For a March study from the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, scientists tracked the blood types of nearly 2,200 patients with COVID-19 in Chinese hospitals, as well as those around 27,000 people who did not have COVID-19 in the same areas. The results showed that people with blood group A were much more likely to contract the coronavirus than other blood groups. And for more regular updates on the virus, sign up for our daily newsletter.

The co-author of the new study, Joel ray, MD, of St. Michael’s Hospital, suggested that people with these more resistant blood types may have already developed antibodies that can recognize aspects of the new coronavirus and are therefore better prepared to fight it.

“Our next study will look specifically at these antibodies and whether they explain the protective effect,” Ray told Reuters. And for more on the latest COVID-19 news, find out how likely you are to catch COVID next month, according to an expert.