“We want to reassure the public that we’re handling this with an abundance of caution.” Pampee Young, chief medical officer of biomedical services at the American Red Cross, earlier this year. “We completely understand people are hesitant,” said Dr. How are blood centers ensuring donor safety? “Blood itself is safe.” Coronaviruses in general don’t seem to be blood transmissible, as evidence from earlier outbreaks of SARS and MERS has shown. “This is not a blood-borne disease, that is clear,” Dr. Can you get coronavirus by donating blood? That means centers are asking younger people to step up and donate more than they usually do. “Even though we think their risk is very low, we want to protect them if they want to be careful about going out.” “They give a disproportionate amount of blood,” Dr. Claudia Cohn, director of the Blood Bank Laboratory at the University of Minnesota and chief medical officer of A.A.B.B., said in an interview earlier this year that normally, older Americans are the country’s best donors.
