It’s hard to get people to donate blood at all, and O is the rarest type. It probably happens a lot. And if they’re out of something else, O is universal blood so maybe some gets used for a guy with AB-. But people with O can only take O.
Probably depends on the hospital too. A 19 bed hospital in Vermont probably doesn’t keep that much O blood. So if the community experiences some kind of event, it’s probably easy for them to run out quickly.
To further this, the negative and positive value also matters. Someone with a negative type can only take negative blood, whereas a positive type can accept both.
I wish it were easier to get people to donate. Just this morning I heard a radio advertisement for the blood service that included the line ‘please schedule and attend an appointment’, which seems wild that so many people book a time then don’t show up.
That chart is overcomplicated.
There are 3 independent markers. A, B, and +.
Blood can have A or not, B or not, and + or not. When the body doesn’t have the marker, it will react to the marker.
So when you have notA, and get A blood, you will have a reaction.
notA blood works for everyone, A blood only for A people. A people can take any blood, notA people only notA blood.
Now do this independently for the 3 markers. AB+ people have all markers so can take any combination. notAnotBnot+ people make blood everyone can take, since there are no markers, but they can’t take any other blood with any markers.
Unfortunately we call not+ -, notAnotB O, notAB B, and AnotB A. So + we invert properly but for A and B we omit them and instead of emptystring when no marker is present we invent O, presumably for 0 markers. This obfuscates the pattern.
From the United States perspective, less blood in reserve drives up prices for the population, so it seems to jive with healthcare as a whole there. I know Canada was buying plasma from them as well in the before times, but I’m not sure about that any more.
Several new plasma donation clinics have opened up to collect from people with more common blood types. It’s interesting to hear the UK ships blood in from the west at all. I would have figured there would be closer options available. Unless Brexit also made that more difficult too.
I understand the necessity of shipping blood around, but it sure would be nice if everywhere had enough donors to keep the blood in country. Though I suppose even in such a utopia, gold blood would still be sent around the world when necessary.
Most appointments are to have something done to a person’s own benefit. Chiropractic, dental, accountant, that sort of thing. Making an appointment to donate blood to a person you’ll never meet is a type of selflessness that surprises me when I hear of people missing those appointments.
Someone at the clinic I go to once mentioned they had two or three missed appointments every day. I don’t know, I suppose I take it more seriously than most, but it strikes me as an odd thing to miss. Especially when the service here calls two days before an appointment to confirm.
I understand your dismay. Believe me I’m not saying the behavior is right. I’m just describing what is.
You nailed it. They will no call no show to appointments to try out wedding cake samples. Giving blood isn’t even fun. They only made the appointment because they didn’t want to look selfish for the blood drive people.
You’ve reminded me some years ago I donated at a pop up clinic, and it was across the street from a carnival that came to town. They went and got a bunch of ride and games tickets and gave them to blood donors. Big sign over at the carnival, and the clinic was packed.
That’s a random way to get people in, but it worked, and it was fun. Now if only they could take the donation while people wait in line for a ride haha.
No. O is rarest. The chromosome pairs are made of A,B,O. A & B are Dominant, O is recessive.
If I’ve done the math right, there’s 144 ways to combine the genes of parents giving a resulting distribution of
A 33.3%
B 33.3%
AB 22.2%
O 11.1%
Because AA, AO, OA all result in type A… BB, BO, OB all result in type B… AB and BA both result in type AB… Only OO can produce type O blood.
Edit: I assumed even distribution of alleles, which is incorrect as pointed out below.
I googled and multiple sources say O+ is the most common type at around 37-39% of the population. You are right about how the genes work but if the majority have two O alleles, then type O is going to propagate and stay common. It also means a lot of people with type A or B are carriers for the O gene and have children with type O. Your math assumes even distribution of all 3 genes
It’s hard to get people to donate blood at all, and O is the rarest type. It probably happens a lot. And if they’re out of something else, O is universal blood so maybe some gets used for a guy with AB-. But people with O can only take O.
Probably depends on the hospital too. A 19 bed hospital in Vermont probably doesn’t keep that much O blood. So if the community experiences some kind of event, it’s probably easy for them to run out quickly.
To further this, the negative and positive value also matters. Someone with a negative type can only take negative blood, whereas a positive type can accept both.
Here's a little chart:
Source
I wish it were easier to get people to donate. Just this morning I heard a radio advertisement for the blood service that included the line ‘please schedule and attend an appointment’, which seems wild that so many people book a time then don’t show up.
That chart is overcomplicated.
There are 3 independent markers. A, B, and +.
Blood can have A or not, B or not, and + or not. When the body doesn’t have the marker, it will react to the marker.
So when you have notA, and get A blood, you will have a reaction.
notA blood works for everyone, A blood only for A people. A people can take any blood, notA people only notA blood.
Now do this independently for the 3 markers. AB+ people have all markers so can take any combination. notAnotBnot+ people make blood everyone can take, since there are no markers, but they can’t take any other blood with any markers.
Unfortunately we call not+ -, notAnotB O, notAB B, and AnotB A. So + we invert properly but for A and B we omit them and instead of emptystring when no marker is present we invent O, presumably for 0 markers. This obfuscates the pattern.
This is not complicated? When we entered XOR or NAND or whatever gates I checked out. Give me the chart.
You’re preaching to the choir here.
The chart is for people that have never tried to sing.
Yeah that’s fucked up.
I’m surprised to hear that america has a shortage of donors because i heard that the UK buys blood from America due to our own shortage of donors.
From the United States perspective, less blood in reserve drives up prices for the population, so it seems to jive with healthcare as a whole there. I know Canada was buying plasma from them as well in the before times, but I’m not sure about that any more.
Several new plasma donation clinics have opened up to collect from people with more common blood types. It’s interesting to hear the UK ships blood in from the west at all. I would have figured there would be closer options available. Unless Brexit also made that more difficult too.
I understand the necessity of shipping blood around, but it sure would be nice if everywhere had enough donors to keep the blood in country. Though I suppose even in such a utopia, gold blood would still be sent around the world when necessary.
That’s a nice sierpiński triangle
I wish that wouldn’t happen… does it really seem wild though? People skip all kinds of appointments without calling.
Most appointments are to have something done to a person’s own benefit. Chiropractic, dental, accountant, that sort of thing. Making an appointment to donate blood to a person you’ll never meet is a type of selflessness that surprises me when I hear of people missing those appointments.
Someone at the clinic I go to once mentioned they had two or three missed appointments every day. I don’t know, I suppose I take it more seriously than most, but it strikes me as an odd thing to miss. Especially when the service here calls two days before an appointment to confirm.
I understand your dismay. Believe me I’m not saying the behavior is right. I’m just describing what is.
You nailed it. They will no call no show to appointments to try out wedding cake samples. Giving blood isn’t even fun. They only made the appointment because they didn’t want to look selfish for the blood drive people.
You’ve reminded me some years ago I donated at a pop up clinic, and it was across the street from a carnival that came to town. They went and got a bunch of ride and games tickets and gave them to blood donors. Big sign over at the carnival, and the clinic was packed.
That’s a random way to get people in, but it worked, and it was fun. Now if only they could take the donation while people wait in line for a ride haha.
Isn’t O the most common type?
No. O is rarest. The chromosome pairs are made of A,B,O. A & B are Dominant, O is recessive. If I’ve done the math right, there’s 144 ways to combine the genes of parents giving a resulting distribution of
A 33.3%
B 33.3%
AB 22.2%
O 11.1%
Because AA, AO, OA all result in type A… BB, BO, OB all result in type B… AB and BA both result in type AB… Only OO can produce type O blood.
Edit: I assumed even distribution of alleles, which is incorrect as pointed out below.
I googled and multiple sources say O+ is the most common type at around 37-39% of the population. You are right about how the genes work but if the majority have two O alleles, then type O is going to propagate and stay common. It also means a lot of people with type A or B are carriers for the O gene and have children with type O. Your math assumes even distribution of all 3 genes
Good points well made.
Just because something is genetically recessive doesn’t mean the gene is rare in a population.
O+ is the most common blood type in many countries, including the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_distribution_by_country
O+ is common, but O- is rare.
A person with O- can only receive O- blood.
Thank you for the clarification