Blood Drive appointment times are still available
By Shannon Weidemann (McKone) on Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
LA GRANDE – A La Grande Community Blood Drive two-day event kicks off today, but organizers say there are still several appointment times open for tomorrow, Wednesday, April 6th.
Along with this drive, organizers will be providing testing for COVID-19 antibodies.
Here is what you need to know about COVID-19 Antibody testing (according to information provide by Blood Drive organizers)
•Donors need to have completed donation to receive the COVID-19 antibody test results. Per standard donation procedure, only completed donations are sent to our laboratory.
•Donors can get their results of the antibody test by logging in to their Blood Donor account on the Blood Donor App or online within one to two weeks after their donation.
•The Red Cross is not testing donors to diagnose illness, referred to as a diagnostic test. An antibody test screens for antibodies in your blood. Antibodies are formed when fighting infection or in response to specific vaccination, like COVID-19. An antibody test assesses whether your immune system has responded to the infection or vaccination, not if the virus is currently present.
•Test results will indicate of COVOD-19 antibodies are detected, and further if the level of antibodies is high enough to meet FDA requirements for production of convalescent plasma. A blood donor may see a Reactive or Reactive+ status when antibodies are detected, with Reactive+ indicating a high level of COVID-19 antibodies to meet FDA requirements for convalescent plasma. Results are not indicative of an individual’s potential immunity against any given variant of the virus.
•Like other blood donation screenings, antibody testing is part of the blood donation testing process which occurs at no charge to the donor. Please visit RedCrossBlood.org and enter: La Grande to schedule an appointment.
