A new, preliminary study has found correlations between blood type and the likelihood of being hospitalized with COVID-19. According to the authors, people with type A blood might be more at risk than those with other blood types. Share on Pinterest A new, preliminary study asks whether blood type might help predict COVID-19 risk. All data and statistics are based on publicly available data at the time of publication. Some information may be out of date. Visit our coronavirus hub and follow our live updates page for the most recent information on the COVID-19 outbreak. Researchers from the Southern University of Science and Technology, in Shenzhen, China — in collaboration with colleagues from other Chinese institutions — have recently conducted a study assessing the potential relationship between blood type and hospitalization due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Their study is preliminary and has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, which means that other experts have not yet had a chance to assess the researchers’ methodology and findings. However, they have made their study paper available online in preprint form.

Is blood group A hit the hardest? The researchers looked at blood group distribution among 2,173 individuals admitted to hospitals with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. The people each received care at one of three hospitals in Wuhan, China, or Shenzhen. The team then compared the patients’ blood group distribution to that of a group representative of the general population — totaling 3,694 people — in Wuhan. The researchers found that the proportion of people with blood type A was significantly higher among the group hospitalized with COVID-19 than among the general population. They also found that the proportion of people with blood type O was significantly lower among the group with COVID-19 than among the general population. Based on these findings, co-first study author Jiao Zhao and colleagues report that “People with blood group A have a significantly higher risk for acquiring COVID-19, compared with non-A blood groups, whereas blood group O has a significantly lower risk for the infection, compared with non-O blood groups.” It is important to stress, however, that the researchers refer to the risk of needing hospitalization because of COVID-19, rather than the risk of contracting the virus that can lead to the disease.



This is because the team only looked at data from individuals whose symptoms were severe enough to require hospitalization, not those with mild symptoms that responded to home care.