There Is An Urgent Need
Updated: Apr 9, 2020
I have been reading about the shortage of blood. Honestly, I haven't given blood in a long time. It's been on the tail end of a long "to do" list. Now, there is an urgent need. An AABB press release (used to be American Association of Blood Banks, now stands for something else but same idea!) from March 12, 2020 starts “'We need people to start turning out in force to give blood.' That is the urgent call-to-action coming from Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, as fear about the coronavirus is keeping people from wanting to donate blood."
Yikes. It scared me to think about going to donate blood. I haven't left my house for days except for a solo run or walk. Friends are making fun of me for not wanting to eat salad because I can't really scrub it and the idea of going to a public place in our hotspot Maryland county, where even our little school had a positive case of COVID-19, seems hard to fathom. I googled around looking for a place to donate. I see the importance of it, the red banners about shortages and the idea that "social distance does not need to mean social disengagement." I know that people in the hospital will need blood! Still, I couldn't bring myself to make the appointment.
Then I received a text from an out-of-state cousin. It's a selfie with a "I make a difference" American Red Cross sticker on his jacket. If I had been smacked on the head with a giant red cross pillow it wouldn't have been more of a sign of what I needed to do. I looked again and listened to the promo from Dr. Marks:
"It's a very safe thing to go give blood and people should do it because they can help save lives." - Dr. Peter Marks, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the Food and Drug Administration. See the press release here.
I also found this article from the New York Times. How to Donate Blood as Coronavirus Threatens the U.S. Supply.
So I'm committing to Meaningful Act #3 and signing up to give blood. How about you? If you do, go to https://www.redcrossblood.org/ to sign up.
UPDATE, April 9, 2020 12:40 PM: Here's yesterday's blog post from the American Red Cross. How the Red Cross Is Helping People During COVID-19