By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The American Red Cross continues to urge people to roll up a sleeve and donate blood as the blood supply is at an all time low.
Local Red Cross official Randee Krumwiede says last year during the pandemic as businesses and churches shut down and canceled blood drives, the Red Cross was forced to go mobile and rebounded the blood supply.
Krumwiede says now though, the situation is very different.
"Normally we will see a blood shortage during the summer months, and that's primarily related to schools being out for the summer session, especially considering that probably about 20-25% of our blood donations come from students," Krumwiede tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "But it was unique this year, we were doing COVID-19 antibody testing and different things with the Red Cross and so it was drawing blood drive donors to the door."
She adds that over the past months the Red Cross has seen a major decline in the amount of people showing up to blood drives.
Krumwiede says there's been a chronic blood shortage.
"The current blood supply is the lowest that the Red Cross has seen this time of year in more then a decade, those are pretty startling numbers," Krumwiede says. "So we can speculate different things, but the bottom line is that we need at least 1o,000 more donations every week, in the coming weeks, to meet patient needs."
The Red Cross hopes to address the crisis , urging people to get out and donate blood.
Krumwiede says that during a shortage this extreme all blood types are needed, especially O negative blood
"The O positive blood type is the most common blood type, so we always need extra donors that come in for that, but the O negative blood type is the universal blood type," Krumwiede explains. "So that's the blood that will be housed on emergency vehicles, ambulances, and helicopters and things like that or in a hospital if we have a trauma situation where blood has to be transfused very quickly."
Krumwiede says the need for O negative blood is not based on rarity of the blood type, but because it is the most used being the universal blood type
You can find more information about donating blood HERE.