HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — U.S. blood supplies have rebounded since the pandemic shutdown almost stopped all collection, but local banks are still working hard to collect Type O blood and platelets.

Huntington Beach is holding a blood drive Saturday along with UCI Health to help, specifically issuing a call for Type O blood. Carriers of that type are universal donors, an advantage for hospitals who need to provide blood, but have not yet identified the patients type.

Dr. Minh-Ha Tran, a clinical professor of pathology in the school of medicine at the University of California, Irvine said that people can’t get complacent.

Hospitals have, he said, become more efficient at storing and using blood, decreasing the number of donors required. But once the pandemic shut off most supplies, donors got out of the habit of going and have been slow to return. Tran said UCI Health had begun a mobile collection service that parked in busy locations like malls before blood drives had returned. 

The supply was so low earlier in the rebound that Tran said the hospital had received just 50% of its Type O supply. While blood collection has picked up, it has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

“There are still weaknesses in the blood supply,” he said.

One of those weaknesses is blood platelets. While blood donation takes about an hour, platelet donation can take as much as three hours, a window of time too lengthy for many would be donors.

The other vulnerability, he said, is consistency. While people are donating at a good clip now, blood banks need people to keep to a regular schedule.

 “We don’t just want people to come in response to an urgent appeal or a momentary blood shortage,” he said. “We hope people will adopt kind of a lifelong habit of blood donation.”

The drive will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Central Library in Huntington Beach at 7111 Talbert Ave.