Blood banks avert a supply crisis.
Two weeks ago, the message from blood banks and hospitals was dire: Mass closures and disintegrating blood drives were creating a potential spiral of perishable supplies nationwide as the coronavirus pandemic surged.
Amid a respiratory infection outbreak that has little to do with blood, doctors pondered the horror of treating patients with no blood to replenish their bodies. “I am looking at the refrigerator that contains only one day’s supply of blood for the hospital,” warned a Michigan doctor on March 17.
But pleas to the public to avoid a crisis by volunteering to donate blood en masse appear to have worked, giving hospitals and blood banks some relief. Still, concern grows that unexpected developments during the pandemic could once again threaten the supply.
“People have come out in significant numbers. It has been incredible to watch,” Paul Sullivan, senior vice president of the American Red Cross, said Tuesday in an interview, describing nationwide supplies as “adequate” for the time being.
“We say that cautiously because we don’t know what will come,” he said.
Initial fears were prompted by a wave of closures from schools, businesses and places of worship, effectively ending the most crucial mover of blood — big public drives that supply the Red Cross with more than 80% of its stock.
About 350,000 pints of blood slated for collection at thousands of Red Cross drives were canceled from midMarch through April, Sullivan said, driving worry that a once reliable stream will not return anytime soon.
The emergency call for donors led to waves of volunteers braving public places to give blood in their communities. Reduced capacity has led to a glut of donors, sending some Red Cross appointments into late April.
Some blood banks have been overwhelmed with support. Yet as the virus continues its deadly march, potential donors and blood bank staffs could be taken out of commission.
They have stressed the need to stretch donations into the future.
“Donors are calling us now, and we are scheduling appointments two to eight weeks away,” said Rick Axelrod, president and chief executive of Lifestream Blood Bank, which serves 80 hospitals in Southern California.
Individual donors have filled the gaps left by big drives, and with demand dropping, supplies are good “right now,” Axelrod said — with a caveat.
“It’s ‘right now’ because we’re really worried about four weeks from now,” he said.
Donation centers have transformed their spaces, ensuring that donor beds are 6 feet apart, metering appointments and cleaning donor stations more often — and more visibly — to quell concerns and protect donors and staff, Sullivan said.
A refreshed supply was aided by other virus-related consequences.
Elective surgeries have dipped as hospitals conserve manpower, and the number of trauma patients has declined because people are driving less and having fewer workplace accidents, said Baruch Fertel, an emergency physician at the Cleveland Clinic.
The hospital itself solicited donations, creating a small surge of supply, and algorithms developed amid potential shortages help doctors manage their stock, Fertel said. But women are still hemorrhaging in childbirth, people are still getting shot and cancer patients still need transfusions.
“If we keep focus on donations, and judicious use, we can stay out of trouble,” he said. “But we’re not out of the woods. Folks who are healthy and recovered should consider giving blood.”
Peter Paige, the chief physician executive for the Jackson Health System in Miami, said his doctors have not been in the habit of wasting blood, but concern of a supply disruption has led to a “heightened level of awareness as we prepare for potential decrease,” he said.
Blood is perishable by nature, and the expiration of products extracted from a pint of blood vary widely. Red blood cells last about 42 days, Sullivan said, and plasma can be frozen.
But platelets, the tiny cells in blood that help it clot — a lifeline for trauma patients and chemotherapy treatments — last five days. The real number after collection and transport is about three days, Sullivan said, making constant donations critical.
The uncertainty has cast a pall over several blood banks that say that while supplies are adequate for now, accelerating coronavirus infections could lead to increasingly less ability for donors to get to a blood drive.
Diversifying pockets of donors has become critical, said Nicholas Canedo, a spokesman for We Are Blood, a blood bank that serves 40 hospitals in Central Texas. Donors have to wait two months to give blood again, so the bank’s fleet of buses has been instrumental in reaching untapped communities.
“We’re all very inspired and feeling pretty good about the community reaction so far,” he said. “But we don’t know what the situation will be like in the next weeks and months, and whether that will affect donor turnout.”