[conspire] COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 & antibody-positive plasma (convalescent plasma/serum)

[Michael Paoli]

Elise,

Great that you're interested to donate, however,
come on now, I'm not your personal answering machine.

There's list(s), there's 'da Internet, there's search engines.
If you've not already, please learn how to reasonably and properly
use them.  Heck, there's even nice authoritative sources, ... like
blood banks, with information, and answers to most common questions ...
like yours.  I'm not answering your homework questions for you.  ;-)
So ... do your homework.  :-)

Thanks.

references/excerpts:
> From: "Elise Scher" <elise.scher01 at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [conspire] COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 & antibody-positive  
> plasma (convalescent plasma/serum)
> To: Michael Paoli <Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu>
> Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2020 07:32:24 -0700

> I would like to donate some of my blood. But I am wondering if
> donate.
> I wonder if
>
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2020, 2:45 AM Michael Paoli <Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> > From: "Deirdre Saoirse Moen" <deirdre at deirdre.net>
>> > Subject: Re: [conspire] Known unknowns, unknown unknowns (was:
>> Correction)
>> > Date: Mon, 30 Mar 2020 13:29:12 -0700
>>
>> > On Mon, Mar 30, 2020, at 12:55 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
>> >> Seems to me, what would finally change this is provisioning of ample
>> >> testing kits nationwide (plus lab capacity to evaluate them, for kits
>> >> requiring that), along with revisions to hospital / county /
>> >> city / state / other policies too-severely restricting their
>> >> availability.
>> >
>> > What saddens me about this is having antibody-positive plasma in the
>> > pipelines right now would be hella useful.
>>
>> Yup, a (mostly) older technology, more heavily used in the past, and
>> pretty dang effective.  If I recall correctly from my earlier reading,
>> in at least the US, it mostly dropped out of favor around the
>> 1950s/1960s or so, as most of the more dreaded diseases had vaccines
>> by then, and convalescent plasma/serum became much less used.
>> But it has been used quite effectively (more so in) the past.
>> It's also highly useful when there is no vaccine, the disease is
>> particularly damaging/fatal, and there aren't (other) effective
>> treatments.  E.g., as I seem to recall, it was used a fair amount
>> during the 1918 "Spanish" flu, and generally pretty effective when/where
>> used as treatment, and many other times/circumstances, against many
>> infectious diseases.
>>
>> Oh, and blood banks and the like.
>>
>> Yes, some of them are interested in (at least probable)
>> convalescent plasma/serum - but they have quite special different
>> procedures for that.  See, e.g.:
>>
>> https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/dlp/plasma-donations-from-recovered-covid-19-patients.html
>> (They also have programs making such available to researchers and such.)
>>
>> Also, regular blood bank needs continue, and they may be down quite a bit,
>> mostly due to mobile drives generally not happening.
>> So, if you're healthy and able to donate and meet criteria,
>> including also newer COVID-19 specific related criteria,
>> certainly donate or consider doing so (or recruiting some folks to
>> do so or ...) ;-).
>> Oh, and yes, "essential" trips and such - per the countys' orders and
>> guidelines, donating blood (and blood products) counts as essential
>> and is not only permitted, but (if you look at their FAQs and such)
>> encouraged.  (Yes, I donated again this past Saturday ... also
>> convenient "excuse" to get out and get some (not too strenuous)
>> exercise and (relatively) fresh (mask filtered) air - nice long walk
>> out 'n back).