Blood Type ‘A’ more susceptible to the Disease than Blood Type ‘O’

Dr. Sotirios “Steve” Kassapidis is an MD in Critical Care Medicine, Pulmonary Disease, and Internal Medicine in Queens, New York.  He was recently featured in the UK Daily Mail for his blunt descriptions of the situation in New York.

Blood Type‘Hell. Biblical. I kid you not. People come in, they get intubated, they die, the cycle repeats,’ said Dr Steve Kassapidis of Mount Sinai Queens, in an interview with Sky News. ‘9/11 was nothing compared to this, we were open waiting for patients to come who never came. Now they just keep coming.’

Last night Dr. Kassapidis was a guest on Tucker Carlson, the 2nd highest rated Cable TV News show.

From Fox News,

New York City doctor reports on fight against coronavirus: ‘The system has bent, but we’re surviving’

Carlson asked about the demographics of those who die from the disease.

“We’ve had patients from 30 to 80. No underlying conditions,” Kassapidis said bluntly. “If they have underlying conditions, that’s a strike against them.”

“So we get patients from every walk of life, every age,” Kassapidis added. “The higher their co-morbidities are, the higher their risk of mortality.”

Tucker asked the Doctor how he’s doing specifically (13 minute mark – YouTube), and if he had concerns of catching the virus himself.  He responded that he’s been on Hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure, and then this:

“If you read the literature, there’s some people who say that different blood types are higher risk for the virus.  I’m O+ which is low risk for the virus.  So, so far I’ve been lucky.”

A group of Chinese researchers published a pre-print, not yet peer-reviewed, two weeks ago.

From DailyHealthPost, March 17,

Blood Type A Most Vulnerable to COVID-19, Study Suggests

BloodType » Blood Type on COVID: NYC Doctor tells Tucker Carlson, they do matter » Human Evolution News » 1If your blood type is ‘A’, you could be more vulnerable to COVID-19 than a person with blood type ‘O’ according to a recent study, the results of which were reported by the South China Morning Post… [the] study assessed blood types of people in China who had been infected with the mutated coronavirus.

A team of researchers looked at blood type patterns of over 2,000 infected patients in Shenzhen and Wuhan. Their findings showed blood type A individuals were more commonly infected than type O. What is more, their symptoms were more severe. [Emphasis added]

Stephen Chen of the SCMP described it as “type O ‘had a significantly lower risk.”

And this:

Of 206 patients who had died from Covid-19 in Wuhan, 85 had type A blood, which was 63 per cent more than the 52 with type O. The pattern existed across different age and gender groups.

Some have expressed skepticism.  Mainstream media are portraying the findings as unproven, untested, and even fictional.

From News9, Oklahoma City,

Coronavirus (Covid-19): What Is Fact And What is Fiction?

Now to the fiction.

There was a preliminary study released to media that Chinese researches found a link to blood types and COVID-19.

The data collected suggests people with Type A blood suffer at a high number than those with O positive blood.

Doctors at the Oklahoma Blood Institute said while the study is interesting, it is too soon to draw those conclusions.

They add the sample size needs to be larger, and that COVID-19 is a virus associated with respiratory distress and is not a blood-borne virus.

OBI doctors said further testing is needed.

Note – the doctors at OK Blood Inst. did not refute the study, only mentioned that more information was needed.

As ScienceAlert.com notes, this could be moderately important in determining who needs to take more or less precautions:

these relatively small differences, if replicated in studies with larger data pools, could lead to slight changes in the way we manage the spread of the disease…  [but] this raises another fascinating topic – how our blood types can change the way we are affected by certain viruses is interesting in itself.

Blood can be categorised in many ways, but the one you’re most familiar with – the ABO blood group categorisation – is based on having particular molecules or ‘antigens’ on the surface of your blood cells…

This is important for things like blood transfusions, because our immune system can see the other types as intruders.

Eric

Author Eric

FSU grad, US Navy Veteran. Houston, Texas

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  • Marcia says:

    Trying to catch up on your recent information… I have heard some theorize the higher rate of complications in Italy and Spain, and project for Europe and US, is that we have a higher relative rate of A blood type versus China’s. China about 28% of their population has A blood and in Europe and US is 36% plus.
    http://www.rhesusnegative.net/themission/bloodtypefrequencies/

    I do wonder if having an underlying recessive O would give some help, a person who is A+ can be either A+/O+ or A+/A+ (not factoring RH- is fairly rare and also recessive). So is an A+/A+ at greatest danger and A+/O+ some resistance and O+/O+ greater resistance?

    I know that my dad is O+ (he had to be O+/O- as grandma that side was O-) Then I am O+ and 2 of my sons are A+ as well as my sister is A + … 23andme appears to show indirectly your blood type on the rs505922. T/T is O type, C/T or C/C is not O but the C/T likely that A or B and O mix. This on SNPedia seems to indicate O is protective against certain diseases, so why not this as well? https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/rs505922

    If I am reading this correctly then on 23andme can on pull down of your name on kit choose browse raw data, search for rs505922 and if you are T/T you are O blood type. If you show C/T you are recessive for O blood type but the A (or B?) is dominant. If you have a C/C you are not O and not recessive for O. So either A/A (A type) or B/B (B type) or A/B (AB type). That holds for my family on the people I know are A (my sister and two of my sons) versus those I know who are O like my dad and myself.

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