SVCC blood drive during pandemic

By Claudia Garcia

          On October 26 the SVCC Student Government and AmeriCorps teamed up with The American Red Cross to set up a blood drive. Due to COVID-19, the Red Cross had precautions put in place to limit the potential spread of the virus. 

          People who were interested in donating blood were directed to redcrossblood.org to register themselves to donate. All donors, volunteers, and Red Cross staff were required to enter through the West Mall Entrance and go through the SVCC screening procedure before being allowed to attend the drive.

          The event took place from 9am to 3pm in the Dillon Mall at SVCC. The Red Cross prioritized their safety precautions and made sure to provide hand sanitizer throughout the event, have donors and staff wear masks, routinely disinfecting surfaces/ equipment/donor-touched areas, wearing/changing gloves often, and using sterile collection sets and an aseptic scrub for every donation made. They made sure that donors, volunteers, and staff followed the precautions set in place.

          The Red Cross made it clear that staff and volunteers who didn’t wear masks could notwork at the drives if fixed sites. There were seven student volunteers who participated in the drive, and they made sure to follow the rules. Sauk made sure to limit the number of volunteers so the risk of COVID-19 spreading would be low.

          COVID-19 has decreased the amount of blood that the Red Cross has been able to collect. The Red Cross has experienced many cancellations due to the high increase of COVID cases, and high amounts of no-show which is causing a blood shortage, but every donor who donated blood as SVCC counted.

          There were 38 appointments set for the blood drive. Out of the 38 appointments, 22 donors were present and 16 donors were no show. However, the Red Cross was able to collect 23 pints of blood, and it could save approximately 69 lives.