{"id":5372,"date":"2023-11-29T06:56:39","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T12:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5372"},"modified":"2023-11-29T06:56:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T12:56:43","slug":"this-blood-type-could-help-you-dodge-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/11\/29\/this-blood-type-could-help-you-dodge-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"This Blood Type Could Help You\u00a0Dodge Covid"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/newsletters\/2023-11-29\/this-blood-type-may-help-lower-your-covid-19-infection-risk?srnd=undefined\">Bloomberg<\/a> Several studies have now shown that people with blood type O are less susceptible to contracting Covid, and those with blood type A are more likely to get it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the early days of the pandemic, those findings were&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/hms.harvard.edu\/news\/covid-19-blood-type\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hotly debated<\/a>. But one study this summer&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/ashpublications.org\/blood\/article\/142\/8\/742\/496471\/Blood-group-A-enhances-SARS-CoV-2-infection\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">described<\/a>&nbsp;the mechanism by which Covid interacts with blood cells. It found that part of the spike protein \u2014 the matchstick-like structures sticking out of the surface of the virus \u2014 more effectively binds to group A cells and less so to group O cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cNow we have a scientific explanation,\u201d says&nbsp;Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at the School of Public Health of the University of Illinois at Chicago. This could help future research to develop vaccines or treatments, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even Rh factor, the + or &#8211; displayed after your blood type, matters.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC8286549\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Some testing<\/a>\u00a0even found that those with Rh-negative blood appear to be at decreased risk of infection. While that\u2019s been less conclusive, it fit perfectly with my very unscientific finding that the only people I know in the world who never had Covid have type O negative blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/newsletters\/2023-11-29\/this-blood-type-may-help-lower-your-covid-19-infection-risk?srnd=undefined\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bloomberg Several studies have now shown that people with blood type O are less susceptible to contracting Covid, and those with blood type A are more likely to get it. In the early days of the pandemic, those findings were&nbsp;hotly debated. But one study this summer&nbsp;described&nbsp;the mechanism by which Covid interacts with blood cells. It [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-and-tech"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Screenshot-2023-11-29-at-07.53.43.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5372"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5374,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions\/5374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}