(Photo by Pranidchakan Boonrom from Pexels)
The American Red Cross is facing a dip in the supply of blood in the Southeast meant for needy hospitals in the latest ripple effect of the hack of a major East Coast gas pipeline.
“As a result of the gas shortage, the Red Cross has had to cancel more than a dozen blood drives in the Southeast,” Red Cross spokesperson Katie Wilkes told Code and Dagger via email on Thursday. “In addition, we are seeing decreased donor turnout at our drives in affected areas as individuals look to conserve gas.”
Wilkes said that normally the Red Cross organizes about 500 blood drives across the whole of the U.S. every day. While that means the cancellations add up to a relatively small percentage of the country’s total, Wilkes said the Red Cross is more concerned about the lack of donors at the open drives.
“This downturn in blood donors comes at a time when the Red Cross continues to see strong demand for blood products by hospitals as they work to reschedule elective surgeries in parts of the country and resume clinical care that was postponed due to the [COVID-19] pandemic,” Wilkes said.
A regional Red Cross office emailed volunteers, including this reporter, Wednesday about a small number of proactive blood drive cancellations linked the ransomware hack of Colonial Pipeline, which provides about 45% of the gas for much of the East Coast. (I recently volunteered as a “blood courier” in North Carolina, transporting blood from donation locations to processing centers – potentially hours-long trips that themselves require gallons of gas.)
North Carolina is among the states hit hardest by the current shortage. Gov. Roy Cooper issued a state of emergency decree earlier this week, and GasBuddy, a service that tracks gas prices and supply, reported that some 68% of gas stations in North Carolina were out of gas as of Thursday.
U.S. officials and experts have urged the public not to panic-buy, which further stresses the supply chain, as service is restored.
Thursday afternoon Colonial said it had made “substantial progress in safely restarting our pipeline system” and “can now report that we have restarted our entire pipeline system and that product delivery has commenced to all markets we serve.”
Still, the Red Cross suggested they expect to feel the lingering effects of the shortage a bit longer.
“Even as pipeline operations resume, we recognize there may be a small number of additional disruptions until fuel supply returns to normal in the upcoming week,” Wilkes said. “Despite these challenges, every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood.”
Wilkes encouraged those who can to make an appointment to donate blood and said blood donors who had their appointments affected by the gas shortage will be notified to reschedule.
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