Public Policy Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Blood Supply in the United States

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated an acute blood shortage for medical transfusions, exacerbating an already tenuous blood supply system in the United States, contributing to the public health crisis, and raising deeper questions regarding emergency preparedness planning for ensuring blood availability. However, these issues around blood availability during the pandemic are related primarily to the decline in supply caused by reduced donations during the pandemic rather than increased demand for transfusion of patients with COVID-19. The challenges to ensure a safe blood supply during the pandemic will continue until a vaccine is developed, effective treatments are available, or the virus goes away. If this virus or a similar virus were capable of transmission through blood, it would have a catastrophic impact on the health care system, causing a future public health emergency that would jeopardize the national blood supply. In this article, we identify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on blood supply adequacy, discuss the public health implications, propose recovery strategies, and present recommendations for preparing for the next disruption in blood supply driven by a public health emergency. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print March 18, 2021: e1–e7. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306157 )

Transfusion-Associated Hyperkalemic Cardiac Arrest in Neonatal, Infant, and Pediatric Patients

“…To abrogate TAHCA in the future, additional studies are warranted to evaluate the safety and efficacy of these mitigation strategies and/or implementation of restrictive transfusion strategies (97,105). Indeed, restrictive transfusion strategies can also help to mitigate blood supply shortages that have resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, due in part to fewer blood donations (106).…”

Needed resiliency improvements for the National Blood Supply

“…The reimbursement system needs modernization and increased funding resources for infrastructure, innovation in data systems, improved blood products, donor motivation and engagement research, and supply chain resiliency. 2,9 One highly successful initiative during this pandemic response that serves as a model for building resiliency was the provision of COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma (CCP) through a coalition of blood centers, hospitals, HHS, and private industry and foundations. The federal government immediately provided funding to blood centers to begin rapid production of a new potential therapy, CCP, for the treatment of COVID-19 based on the cost of producing the CCP, including start-up costs, donor recruitment costs, and production and storage costs.…”

Using automation to manage donor engagement and fine-tune supply and demand during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Blood collection and blood usage were significantly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] . Blood product demand became unpredictable, especially in the first months following the March 2020 lock down [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] .…”

“…Blood collection and blood usage were significantly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] . Blood product demand became unpredictable, especially in the first months following the March 2020 lock down [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] . In the early months of the pandemic, blood drives were canceled, donors stopped presenting, and hospitals reduced elective surgeries [3] .…”