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

Michael Zietz; Nicholas P. Tatonetti

We found associations between COVID-19 status and both ABO (p=0.006) and ABO+Rh (p=0.031) blood groups in a comparison between individuals testing positive vs testing negative (Tables 2 , 6 ). Blood groups A were associated with increased odds of testing positive for COVID-19 (OR 1.338, 95% CI [1.072-1.672], p=0.009), while O blood groups were associated with decreased odds of testing positive (OR 0.804, 95% CI [0.654-0.987], p=0.036). While few individuals with AB blood groups were included (21 COV+, 47 COV-), we also found AB blood groups to be associated with decreased odds of testing positive (OR 0.561, 95% CI [0.315-0.969], p=0.033). When we tested individual ABO+Rh blood groups against all others, we discovered that strong associations are only found in Rh positive blood groups (Tables 2 , 7 ). We did not find any significant associations between blood group and intubation or death. Finally, we compared the blood group distributions between all individuals tested for SARS-CoV-2 with the general population at NYP/CUIMC, finding insufficient evidence to conclude that tested individuals are not drawn from the general population at random (p=0.2736).