There are thousands of personal health factors that contribute to your risk of contracting COVID-19, which is why the disease poses such a significant threat. Pre-existing conditions, such as heart disease and high blood pressure, can put you in danger of coronavirus, as can your blood type. However, although early research claimed that people with type O blood tend to be safe from COVID-19, while people with type A are most at risk, the new reports show that this may not be true.
Let’s start from the beginning: according to a June 2020 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, people with type A blood have a 45 percent higher risk of contracting coronavirus, while people with type O blood were 65 percent less likely to become infected compared to other blood types.
Despite that research, however, the reality is quite different. If you have type O blood, you are far from immune to the virus. 36% of the US population has type A blood, while 48% have type O blood. According to the American Red Cross, type O blood is more common in Hispanic and African American groups (51 percent and 57 percent, respectively). However, black communities have disproportionately high COVID-19 infection rates.
On June 25, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data showing that black people are infected with coronavirus at a rate five times higher than white people. Meanwhile, Hispanic or Latino people are four times more likely to become infected than their white counterparts. They also have the highest hospitalization rates after American Indians and Alaska Natives. When adjusted for ages 45 to 54, black and Hispanic death rates are at least six times higher than those of white people, according to Brookings research.
Counties with the largest number of black residents account for more than half of all coronavirus cases and nearly 60 percent of deaths, reports CNN, an overwhelming number, considering that black people account for only 13.4 percent of the total population of the United States.
RELATED: For the most up-to-date information, subscribe to our daily newsletter.
“[Type] Or you should not think that you are not going to get this disease ” Sakthivel Vaiyapuri, MD, PhD, associate professor of cardiovascular pharmacology at the University of Reading, told CNN. “They shouldn’t be running everywhere and not keep their social distance, nor should they [type] A panic. “And to learn more about how you could be affected by the coronavirus, see If you have this in your blood, you are twice as likely to die from COVID.
