Blood Type May Affect Severity of COVID-19 Infection, New Study Suggests (yahoo.com) 59
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Yahoo: In a new study published Wednesday, researchers in Canada found that, among 95 critically ill COVID-19 patients, 84 percent of those with the blood types A and AB required mechanical ventilation compared to 61 percent of patients with type O or type B, CNN reports. The former group also remained in the intensive care unit for a median of 13.5 days, while the latter's median stay was nine days.
Dr. Mypinder Sekhon, an intensive care physician at Vancouver General Hospital and the author of the study, said blood type has been "at the back of my mind" when treating patients, but "we need repeated findings across many jurisdictions that show the same thing" before anything definitive is established. It's still unclear what may be behind the possible distinction; Sekhon said one explanation could be that people with blood type O are less prone to blood clotting, which can often lead to more severe cases. Either way, Sekhon doesn't believe blood type will supersede other "risk factors of severity" like age or comorbidities, and he said people should not behave differently based on their group. The two studies were published in the journal Blood Advances.
Dr. Mypinder Sekhon, an intensive care physician at Vancouver General Hospital and the author of the study, said blood type has been "at the back of my mind" when treating patients, but "we need repeated findings across many jurisdictions that show the same thing" before anything definitive is established. It's still unclear what may be behind the possible distinction; Sekhon said one explanation could be that people with blood type O are less prone to blood clotting, which can often lead to more severe cases. Either way, Sekhon doesn't believe blood type will supersede other "risk factors of severity" like age or comorbidities, and he said people should not behave differently based on their group. The two studies were published in the journal Blood Advances.
Re:Suck it A blood typers (Score:4, Informative)
uh... no.
O negative in an emergency can be given to anyone.
Most O type people are O positive.
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And people living north of the USA are O Canada.
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O- can be given to anyone, but O+ can still be given to anyone who's +, whether they're O, A, B, or AB. So there's definite value for O+ folks and a definite need for them to donate.
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commenting to delete accidental moderation
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I am not asking anyone to "believe" anything. I am just asking people to visit the link and decide for themselves.
Maybe you should have provided a link then...
Most people have already decided that you're 'not quite all there' and are unlikely to have followed it anyway. But it seemed a key part of your plan...
Conflicting studies (Score:4, Informative)
I read an article a number of months ago saying this exact thing. In searching for it, I find this study from Harvard back in July flat out claiming this is not true - that there is no statistical link to blood type:
https://hms.harvard.edu/news/c... [harvard.edu]
I understand that better data comes along, and that can change the results of these studies. However I also wonder how they can get something so wrong to flat out say the exact opposite of what is now known to be true.
“We showed through a multi-institutional study that there is no reason to believe being a certain ABO blood type will lead to increased disease severity, which we defined as requiring intubation or leading to death,” said senior study author Anahita Dua, HMS assistant professor of surgery at Mass General.
“This evidence should help put to rest previous reports of a possible association between blood type A and a higher risk for COVID-19 infection and mortality,” Dua said.
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Honestly this should be so simple to prove one way or the other.
Not when bureaucrats with unrelated agendas hold the purse strings.
Re:Conflicting studies (Score:4, Informative)
However I also wonder how they can get something so wrong to flat out say the exact opposite of what is now known to be true.
From your link:
"A study population of 1,289 symptomatic adult patients, who tested positive for COVID-19 and had their blood group documented, was culled from more than 7,600 symptomatic patients across five Boston-area hospitals"
From the summary:
"among 95 critically ill COVID-19 patients"
Re:Conflicting studies (Score:5, Informative)
That's the important part. Margin of error [wikipedia.org] = Z * sqrt (p * (1-p) / n). Z for a 95% confidence interval is 1.96. For a 99% confidence interval it's 2.58. I can't find the original study so I don't know how those 95 patients break down into blood type. Assume it's 50/50.
48 type A and AB patients with a 84% chance to need mechanical ventilation, the standard error (margin of error before you multiply by Z) is
sigma_aab = sqrt (0.84 * 0.16 / 48) = 0.053 (95% confidence interval, Z = 1.96) 84% +/- (1.96*0.053) = 84% +/- 10.4%
(99% confidence interval, Z = 2.58) 84% +/- 13.7%
47 type O and B patients with a 61% chance works out to
sigma_ob = sqrt(0.61 * 0.39 / 47) = 0.071
(95% confidence interval) 61% +/- 13.9%
(99% confidence interval) 61% +/- 18.3%
So the actual rate of ventilation for blood types A and AB can be somewhere between 73.6% and 94.4% and still result 84% of them needing ventilation 19 out of 20 times you sample. And the actual rate of ventilation for blood types O and B can be somewhere between 47.1% and 74.9%, and still result in 61% of them needing ventilation 19 out of 20 times. These two ranges overlap (both groups could have identical rates of 73.6% - 74.9%, and still yield these divergent results more than 5% of the time). So these results are not statistically significant to a 95% confidence interval.
Hence the important use of the word "may" in the title. These guys are just saying "Hey, we're detecting a trend which is right on the border of being statistically significant. Other people should check it out so we can increase our sample size to reduce the margin of error, and see if there really is a difference.
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It also means 'it really could be nothing, keep it out of the media until we have something more solid'.
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No, you're playing games with statistics in a way that makes the small sample size sound reasonable.
But it isn't reasonable, it is complete crap because it won't be a random sample.
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A third variable nobody has accounted for.
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Thats how science works, especially under pressure. Research teams are just throwing studies out there as fast as is reasonably possible simply because every data point counts. Sometimes later studies find methodological flaws, or even completely different results.
Its also worth noting that most of the covid in the world right now is a different strain than the first wave, and it appears this strain behaves somewhat differently (Which I should note is likely part of why the observations around airborne part
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No, that is a /. myth.
Or do you think a virus evolves in less than a year? Seriously?
The plague is not gone, and it is a bacteria and not virus anyway - seriously, that is damn school knowledge.
Re:Conflicting studies (Score:5, Informative)
Or do you think a virus evolves in less than a year? Seriously?
Flu viruses evolve in less than a year.
So do the rhinoviruses that cause the common cold.
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No, they do not.
Seriously, you should read a damn book about it.
Flu viruses or other viruses, you usually have many of them at the same time in your body.
So the when your body cells die and release billions of virus particles, they happen to assemble randomly.
So if you are infected by Flu H6N8 and H7N14 a new virus - which we later might call H8N13 - pops up.
The old H6N8 and H7N14: are the same damn virus as before.
They do not go extinct, they do not vanish.
And they do not evolve over night into: not deadl
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They do not go extinct, they do not vanish. And they do not evolve over night into: not deadly
And no one said any of that. That’s multiple strawman arguments in a row. The claim is that viruses can mutate over a year. No one said they "vanished". No one said they mutate "over night". No one said they become "not deadly". You seem to be having an argument with an imaginary person.
Why do we have new vaccines every year for 4 or 5 strand of flu?
You do understand what "strains" are right? For someone chiding others you seem not to grasp this basic concept.
Oh: because flu did not know it should have "evolved" into "non deadly" a millenia ago.
You should read a book on evolution. It is not deterministic and viruses don’t "know" anything. It
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Perhaps you should brush up on some science before you call other people names.
I did not call any one "names". What is that "name calling meme" in Americans?
Oh, and you supported all of my points, thank you :D probably my english is to bad for you to comprehend what I'm saying, sorry.
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For starters, read up a little [cdc.gov] on how viruses evolve.
There are "big" changes and "small" changes, and there are multiple ways those changes can occur [wikipedia.org]. (Including, but not limited to, reassortment [wikipedia.org], which i believe is what you mean by "assemble randomly".) They're all "mutations", because "mutation" just means change. (There is an implication when using the word that they are "
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(Or whichever major H#N# strain happens to be making the rounds, H1N1 is just an example.)
I just made an example, too.
Once the new strain exists how long long it takes to spread and become a dominant strain is partly a matter of statistical randomness and partly a matter of how effective it is at spreading compared to the parent strain.
Exactly.
The fact that you can get the flu multiple times over multiple years without dying in the process is pretty good proof that it has (in general) become more "non deadl
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You are probably wrong on one point and irrelevant on another point.
First, it's very likely that we have acquired some level of genetic resistance to the original Spanish flu. [oup.com] This is precisely because it killed so many people the first time around, leaving a disproportionate number of people who weren't as susceptible to it to produce the proceeding generations, i.e. us.
Second, although as previously
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But statistically the odds for everyone have improved.
Because we have better treatments, know about masks (which actually were used during Spanish Flu as well) and hygiene.
The rest of your post, especially with your fantasy percentages, is just bollocks.
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Of course they can.
But not in the way the /. audience is proclaiming since 7 month.
There is no "harmless" or "less deadly" CIVOD19 strain out there.
Grasp it - or don't - up to you.
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Its also worth noting that most of the covid in the world right now is a different strain than the first wave, and it appears this strain behaves somewhat differently ... Seriously, brains?
No it is not, how do you come to that myth?
If we had a new strain it wold be all over the newspapers
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I've heard of a cocaine user whose entire septum fell out because they'd damaged the blood vessels in the nose so much that it died. Microthromboses are a reported CoVID symptom, so it could be a similar phenomenon.
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Thats how science works, especially under pressure. Research teams are just throwing studies out there as fast as is reasonably possible simply because every data point counts.
That is NOT how science works: there is just one way in which science works, it is a fragile tool, there are no special rules for special times. Those "scientists" throw out flawed studies as fast as possible because that is the way to monetize the situation. They are exactly like the charlatans of old ages.
Its also worth noting that most of the covid in the world right now is a different strain than the first wave, and it appears this strain behaves somewhat differently (Which I should note is likely part of why the observations around airborne particles changed so dramatically, the original strain wasnt as predictably infectious via aerial droplets, although it *was* somewhat more lethal.
Nope, Covid is an influenza, influenza is a seasonal illness: such differences are expected in Covid in different seasons. Just wait for the winter to say something. That IS how science works.
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how they can get something so wrong
Part of the problem may be small sample sizes.
They only tested 95 people.
The difference was only 84% vs 61%. With a sample size that small, just a random shift of a few people could completely change the results.
The error margin is bigger than the reported effect. This study should have never been published.
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Any "studies" about covid should be suspect, because it is politically charged in addition to having big competition to publish first.
As for the divergence of results, different races and ethnicities have different incidence rates of blood type, so variations could result from things like how long particular groups wait to come to the hospital, correlation with other factors that make them sicker, issues with how they are treated by hospital workers, such as language barriers, and a host of other confoundin
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Do Certain Blood Types Live Longer (Score:3)
How about some blood types live longer than other blood types and thus are more susceptible to infections that are far more likely to kill the elderly. Why no check the level of blood types in nursing homes to see if they reflect the general distribution in those populations, first. I'll bet the answer lies in there, certain types of people do not live long enough to end up in a nursing home, at the same level as other types and the 'A' blood type is quite more regionalised to certain nationalities, those most likely to live longer and enter a nursing home, to die, when shit heads filled them with the infected, to ramp up the death toll.
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Not really, type O is the absence of a type.
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Not really, type O is the absence of a type.
Type O is the absence of A or B antigens. There are plenty of other types/antigens in the catalog, and labeling as O doesn't denote presence or absence of those.
Re:Do Certain Blood Types Live Longer (Score:4, Insightful)
How about some blood types live longer than other blood types and thus are more susceptible to infections that are far more likely to kill the elderly. Why no check the level of blood types in nursing homes to see if they reflect the general distribution in those populations, first.
That would be very interesting, and incredibly great news for the blood types most predominate in our surviving elders, yet decidedly less positive a revelation for the losers in the blood type lottery.
And, since the universe has a habit of evening out, genetic advantage to surviving a particular pathogen probably result in a negative outcome to a different longevity threat.
They are no supermen. Species survive because of their genetic diversity. And we thrive .
Among many other factors (Score:4)
Blood type has been suggested as a +/- factor (puntended) affecting covid infection in several other previously reported studies, unfortunately, all of small sample sizes.
Blood type has long been linked to susceptibility to disease, as the apparent winner in the Covid division, type O, has been shown to be more susceptible [nih.gov] to severe cholera infection than other blood types.
There are advantages and disadvantages to everything. No two snowflakes or leaves on a tree are identical. This makes one better for some things, and worse for others. A single chromosome malformity can have an outsized impact on an entire lifespan.
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Fortunately there's a vaccine for cholera.
Blood clotting capability an actual risk factor? (Score:3, Funny)
Does this mean my alcoholism might just save me one more time?
Well, no. That's not what the data says. (Score:5, Insightful)
What they found in the 91 already critically ill patients they studied was a difference in the need for mechanical ventilation. Assuming this result is representative -- and that's a *big* assumption -- it does *not* mean that people with blood type A who get COVID-19 are at higher risk of severe illness than people with blood type O. It only means that among the subset of people who get severe complications, A-type blood people have a higher risk of severe breathing problems.
Remember -- most cases of COVID-19 are mild and don't have severe and long term complications. It's that the thing is so infectious and so many people can get it that relatively uncommon complications can overwhelm the health care system.
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Thanks. I was about to make those points, and I see you already have. Well done.
More research on immunity and severity (Score:3)
For those who want to learn more, please watch Dr. Shiv Pillai's lecture on Immunity and Severity [youtube.com].
Some takeaways:
- The immune system response is the source of complications (blood clots, ...etc.)
- Research shows that certain people do not form any immune memory, because the germinal centers in lymph nodes fail to develop due to something called TNF alpha. Therefore, it may be the case that a segment of society will never be immune. So herd immunity is not the right approach.
- He said "mild infections would not produce herd immunity". The reason is that with a low virus load (meaning the number of particles that the body produces) there is no time for the adaptive part of the immune system to kick in to produce memory cells trained for this specific pathogen.
That may explain the people who got reinfected too.
- In SARS and MERS (related viruses) few people had antibodies for 12 years. The vast majority of people though had the antibodies vanish in one year, even though they had a severe disease
This lecture is part of a very informative course by MIT on COVID-19 [youtube.com].
Intersestingly (Score:1)
Only those who drank water got COVID19. The fact that the rest were already dead was irrelevant.
This has been reported before (Score:2)
There have been a few other reports that blood type affects the outcome of a COVID infection.