Coronavirus and bloodtype

[doodle]

Anyone have any further input into this? Apparently type A blood significantly more prone to complications than say the AB or type O?

[Mountaineer]

Anyone have any further input into this? Apparently type A blood significantly more prone to complications than say the AB or type O?

Doodle, no disrespect intended, but my first reaction when I read the post title was, I have red blood, I've never identified with the bluebloods. You may take that response as referring to red/blue states and their respective philosophies, or as a social status marker, or the locations of worst virus infestations. Or whatever you choose.

[dualstow]

Coronavirus and bloodtype - I'm sure this would be an instant bestseller in Japan. One merely has to write it.
Sounds like what Biden would call malarkey, though.

[doodle]

Seriously though, there seems to be strong correlations between blood type and the severity of coronavirus infections. This has been replicated by stats across national boundaries.

[dualstow]

Seriously though, there seems to be strong correlations between blood type and the severity of coronavirus infections. This has been replicated by stats across national boundaries.

Anything's possible. I see some news items on studies, but I'm not sure if they've been peer-reviewed yet.

[Tortoise]

Another early theory I've seen almost no discussion about in recent weeks is the viral load thing. A while back, I recall reading that many doctors and nurses treating Covid-19 patients (at least in Italy, not sure about the U.S.) were getting very sick, and one theory was that it might be due to viral load -- i.e., if your first exposure to the virus is a lot of it, your immune system might have a harder time mounting a response in time to avoid sickness.

I get the impression that many weeks ago, people were brainstorming about all sorts of theories and ideas -- throwing everything at the wall to see what stuck. Then, as data from around the world gradually revealed that Covid-19 is primarily a "nursing home disease" (e.g., 42% of Covid-19 deaths are from a tiny 0.6% of the population), a lot of those earlier theories and ideas faded into the background.

For example, if blood type can increase one's Covid-19 risk by 20%, but age and comorbidities can increase one's Covid-19 risk by 1000%, or 10,000%, how much are people really going to pay attention to blood type?

[Kriegsspiel]

This is the first I've seen it mentioned, but it would not be surprising. Blood type is related to susceptibility to cholera, for one. I believe this is a recent discovery, so it's possible it applies to other diseases.

[doodle]

I think blood type is largely behind the asymptomatic carrier phenomenon. I'm type A...so in the more "screwed" category unfortunately. Type O apparently much more resistant.

[pp4me]

I have read this about type A blood in other articles too. I'm A negative and I thought it might be true because I also remember reading somewhere that mosquitoes don't like type A blood and they've never bothered me very much.

[Kriegsspiel]

It makes sense that different blood types have benefits and drawbacks (pluses and minuses, if you will), that would help explain why there are different types.

And good for the Os, they're the ones susceptible to cholera. I'm B+, I'm not aware of any benefits other than a positive message.

[vnatale]

Who here knows / does not know their blood type?

I have no idea what mine is. I don't know if I ever knew.

Vinny

[dualstow]

I’m an O.

[vnatale]

I’m an O.

How many times in your life are you informed of that?

When does it matter to know? Blood transfusions?

Vinny

[Dieter]

I'm know mine. Have given blood.

[Mark Leavy]

When does it matter to know? Blood transfusions?

Deployed overseas.
On your tags. On your blood chit.

[dualstow]

I’m an O.

How many times in your life are you informed of that?

When does it matter to know? Blood transfusions?

Vinny

I don’t know, but I asked the first time I had bloodwork done, and I’m pretty sure i donated before I started traveling to Asia and they started rejecting me.

[WiseOne]

i'm type A.

As Tortoise pointed out, the theoretical added risk of this blood type pales in comparison to the major risk factor.

It's an interesting association, though the papers have yet to undergo stringent peer review - and the first one came out of China which makes it instantly suspect.

I doubt there's anything specific about blood type though. More likely it is a proxy for something else, e.g. an HLA gene that happens to be located close to the marker for the A antigen.

Also, there's a hidden multiple comparisons effect going on here: run X tests trying to associate COVID infection with some clinical factor, each of which has a 5% chance of coming up with a false positive result - that's the usual p value cutoff used. Most of these don't show a positive result but then you find one and publish it. The chance of this being a false positive result is therefore not 5%, it's related to the actual number of tests you ran 1 - (1-0.05)^X. If X=10, the chances of a false positive are 40%. Since the paper doesn't mention the 9 tests that didn't show anything, the readers are misled.

Here's a cartoon used to illustrate the problem:

significant.png (289.09 KiB) Viewed 3728 times

[pp4me]

Who here knows / does not know their blood type?

I have no idea what mine is. I don't know if I ever knew.

Vinny

Sounds like you never wore dog tags.

[vnatale]

Who here knows / does not know their blood type?

I have no idea what mine is. I don't know if I ever knew.

Vinny

Sounds like you never wore dog tags.

Never.

Vinny