A donor giving blood (Brad Zerivitz / American Red Cross)The Red Cross has declared its second ever national blood supply crisis. The organization has roughly a half-day supply of blood on hand at distribution sites. Ideally, they would have a reserve of six times that amount.John Davis, a distric t manager with the Red Cross, says donations usually drop in the summer months, but the drop this year has been sharper than usual.LPM’s Bill Burton spoke with Davis about the crisis.This transcript was edited for clarity and length.Bill Burton: A national blood supply crisis. Just how low is the supply?John Davis: We do our best to maintain a certain benchmark across all of our distribution depots. At this point in time, we've really diminished that supply to about a half day supply of the more transfusible blood types, like O positive, for that matter.BB: How much do you generally like to have on hand?JD: We're much happier to be around 6 times that number. About a three day supply is traditionally where we are. A shortage to this degree is as you've cited already pretty unconventional.BB: Tell us about the effects of having a blood supply that low.JD: It's challenging, right? Both life-saving and particularly the more life-altering procedures, those that are a little bit more optional, let's say, are placed on pause. Folks who really do rely on blood to improve the quality of their lives are in a position to simply wait until we can get to a better position.BB: What's causing this shortage?JD: I would say we're in a spot where some of it is conventional, right? The summer happens, and folks step away from habit. They're traveling, they're vacationing, they're in positions where, rather than rolling up a sleeve to help out at work or otherwise, they're spending quality time with their families. That certainly is real, but for reasons that we can't quite figure out just yet, we've seen an additional decline in donorship on top of what's conventional to summer months. It’s not something that we've fully been able to gauge, but something that's very much real.June, for example, about 25% fewer donations than what is normal, and the things in June are certainly relevant to us in the month of August as well.BB: How do you go about trying to get people to roll up their sleeves and donate again?JD: It's really what we're doing right now. So much of it is education. So much of it is awareness, awareness spreading, really highlighting that things are bad. I would say especially bad for that matter. People truly do care about other people. So really, it's opportunities like what we're working our way through right here, right now, and in addition to that, I would say the return to normalcy, folks making their way back from time spent elsewhere with friends and family. Students in particular in high schools are really going to be central characters to that particular conversation and initiative.BB: You said this is low even for summer. What about fall, winter, spring? Have you seen declines there, or is that holding steady?JD: Our team is really well positioned to navigate the fall and winter at current. We have lots of reasons to feel optimistic that things are going to look much shinier as we move through those months. ...read more read less