Your Blood Type Might Affect How Likely It Is To Contract Severe COVID-19
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Some patients contract mild cases of COVID-19 and recover quickly, while others unfortunately have their lives cut short by the illness.
It’s not just Lady Luck who’s responsible for varying severities of COVID-19 infections. European scientists have found a strong statistical association between the disease and patients’ genetic variations. Their paper, published in medical journal medRxiv, was picked up by the New York Times in a recent article.
The team was shocked to find that patients with Type A blood were 50-percent more likely to require oxygen or a ventilator after being diagnosed of COVID-19.
This is the first study to document a substantial link between genes and life-threatening COVID-19 cases, though Chinese scientists had also previously discovered this propensity.
Nobody knows why Type A blood appears more susceptible to extreme COVID-19 infections. “This is haunting me,” concluded Andre Franke, co-author of the new paper and molecular geneticist at Germany’s University of Kiel. The study is currently undergoing peer review.
[via Boing Boing and New York Times, cover image via Shutterstock]
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