Red Cross postpones blood drives

The American Red Cross is postponing blood drives across the nation due to a surplus in donations.

Joshua Murray, the regional communications director for the American Red Cross, believes the increase in donors is in part because they are offering antibody tests with each donation.

Murray said the Red Cross has to keep a close eye on donation numbers, because if too much blood is collected, it may not get used.

“If we have too much, we end up having to discard units and we don’t want to do that because at some point we are going to need those,” Murray said.

Murray said the situation is widespread across the nation, as it depends on how much is being collected from certain areas.

The Red Cross is currently working to reschedule drives that have been postponed due to the donation surplus, but it is not clear when blood drives in the area will resume.

Murray noted that he would like to give a big thank you to all who have donated, especially in the last few months, to put the Red Cross in a situation where they have a surplus.

“We don’t want to get into a situation where we have too much, but that’s a great problem we have to deal with,” he said.

 

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