Testing the association between blood type and COVID-19 infection, intubation, and death

Michael Zietz; Nicholas P. Tatonetti

The novel Coronavirus disease , caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus) has spread rapidly across the globe and has caused over 1,130,000 confirmed infections and over 62,000 deaths worldwide as of April 5, 2020 [ 1 ] . A number of risk factors for COVID-19 infection, morbidity, and mortality are known, including age, sex, and a number of chronic conditions and laboratory findings [ 2 ] . Recently, a study on COVID-19 patients in Wuhan and Shenzhen, China discovered associations between ABO blood types and infection [ 3 ] . Their analysis compared blood groups between hospitalized COVID-19 patients and the general populations of Wuhan and Shenzhen City, as assessed by previously-published samples of healthy individuals. They found that the odds of testing positive for COVID-19 among A blood groups was increased and among O blood groups was decreased relative to the general population. Similarly, previous work has identified associations between ABO blood groups and a number of different infections or disease severity following infections, including SARS-CoV- 1 [ 4 ] , P. falciparum [ 5 ] , H. pylori [ 6 ] , Norwalk virus [ 7 ], hepatitis B virus [ 8 ] , and N. gonorrhoeae [ 9 ] .