Officials from the American Red Cross know that blood is always in demand – especially during the holidays, and even more so in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To help with those efforts, the organization will hold a Holiday Blood Drive from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Dec. 9 in the main conference room of the American Red Cross building at 2020 Hardy St. in Hattiesburg.
“Blood is always low in December and January, but it’s even lower now because of the COVID crisis,” said John McFarland, executive director of the Southeast Mississippi chapter of the Red Cross. “This is not the first time we’ve done it in Hattiesburg, and we’ll do a lot more, but this time of year, the hospitals need blood, and it’s up to us to collect it.”
Although walk-ins are accepted, officials are encouraging participants to make appointments, particularly to avoid large crowds in one spot during the pandemic.
“This way, if they make an appointment, they just show up 15 minutes ahead of their appointment, so we don’t have a lot of people waiting at one time,” McFarland said. “Also, they’ll be in and out faster because we know they’re coming; they’ll get in, get their blood taken quickly and be out of there, instead of having to wait for an open chair.”
Participants also can download the free Red Cross Blood app on any mobile device, where they can make their appointments and get a reminder of the date and time. The app also will provide a pre-screening health check, along with a QR code to be brought to the donation site.
“That way, they’ll just bring their phone – or whatever device they did it on – with them,” McFarland said. “They’ll walk in the building, their temperature will be checked, we’ll scan that code, and they’re ready to go.
“They don’t have to go through the process of sitting down with a nurse and going through the health history and all those other preliminaries.”
Since earlier this year, the Red Cross has been testing every blood donation for COVID-19 antibodies, which also will be done at the Dec. 9 drive.
“A lot of people have had COVID-19 and never even knew it,” McFarland said. “So, they’re not included in the figures that you see for confirmed cases, because they never reported it; they were never tested because they never knew they had it.
“But if they did have it, and their immune system did what it was supposed to do – and that’s to release the proteins that include the antibodies that attack the virus – they have those antibodies still with them. That will show up on the test, and within a few days after they give blood, they can check the app again, and it’ll tell them whether they have the antibodies or not.”
If a person does have the antibodies, he or she is eligible to give convalescent plasma.
Giving that plasma to hospitalized people currently fighting COVID-19 may help them recover from the virus.
“If they want to give their convalescent plasma, then we’ll work with them to show them where to go and when to go,” McFarland said. “Not everybody is going to want to do it and not everybody’s going to be eligible to do it, but that is a critical part … of our role in fighting the coronavirus.
“For most of us who are healthy, and we get the virus – just like when you get the flu – you can take a lot of medication to relieve some of the symptoms, but your internal immune system is what’s going to kill the virus. But if your immune system is not working well and you have pre-existing conditions that effect your immune system … it just won’t produce the proteins with the antibodies to kill the (illness). Without that, you’re probably not going to make it.”
With one unit of plasma able to help up to four COVID victims, officials are hoping to get at least 30 units at the upcoming blood drive.
“To avoid spreading (COVID), we don’t want to have a large group of people in one place at one time,” McFarland said. “That’s unless we’re in a facility like the hospital, where people can be segregated safely.
“Ideally, we love to have blood drives where 200 or 250 people show up, and that way you can collect a lot of units at one time. But to avoid that (COVID) problem, we are having a lot more smaller drives, where the goal is 20, 30 or 40 units at a time.”
