BRAZOS COUNTY, Texas — Social distancing and self quarantine are beginning to take a toll on blood supplies. Blood drives have been canceled and fewer donors are showing up to donate.
Critical need for blood is constant. And it doesn’t help that the supplies have been decreasing dramatically during the COVID-19 outbreak.
“COVID-19 has really impacted the donor availability and most of that is because of social distancing,” said Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center CEO Brian Gannon.
Since mid February, the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center had to cancel about 200 blood drives, which is around 7000 units of blood.
“Schools are shutdown, businesses are not allowing blood drives, churches are not having services and so those are big opportunities for people to come together and donate blood,” said Ganoon.
60 percent of its blood donations come through these gatherings.
The blood center wants to ensure the safety of each donor when they arrive to give blood.
“I think the surgeon general did a really nice job talking about blood donating facilities, how clean they are, how we disinfect behind every single blood donor, how we do distance them and the other thing is when you come into the blood center facilities to donate blood, you’re coming into a clean environment because all the other blood donors have to pass the health test on a long before COVID-19. They can’t have a fever, respiratory illnesses,” said Gannon.
Gannon reminds people that if they are coming to donate blood to not come all at once because blood expires.
“We can’t stockpile blood," said Gannon. "If we have everybody come in at once and then they’re not able to come in for a long time, that would cause a real problem, so the sustainability is a real issue."
The local hospitals and blood centers are constantly looking for people with o+ red cells, but all blood types are needed.
Below are places where you can learn more about donating blood.