In the time of coronavirus, donating blood is more essential than ever

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David Irving, University of Technology Sydney

Blood is like milk, not toilet paper. You can’t just buy a lot of it and save it for later – you need to have a regular, fresh supply for patients who need it.

At the moment, fewer Australians are donating blood than usual. To a degree, we can understand why.

But blood donation is an essential health service, even during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Read more:
How coronavirus is upsetting the blood supply chain

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Donor centres have implemented new measures to ensure the safety of staff, donors and patients receiving transfusions during this time.

If you’re healthy, there’s a good chance you’ll be eligible to donate.

Why do we need more donors now?

We need blood and plasma products every day to support cancer patients, new mums and babies, people with immune deficiencies or blood diseases, and people who need surgery or have suffered trauma.

We’re currently seeing an increase in cancellations and people rescheduling their appointments. Around 900 donors are cancelling appointments each day, up from 800 earlier this month.

There are a number of reasons fewer people are giving blood than usual.

At the start of 2020, we saw a strong response from donors who came forward as a way to help with the nation’s bushfire response. We’ve seen this response to major events before and we know it can affect the supply chain down the track. Because these donors need to wait 12 weeks before they can donate blood again, there are fewer people available to give blood right now.

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Coronavirus: are people with blood group A really at higher risk of catching COVID-19?

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Relating to coronavirus specifically, as people follow advice to stay home except for essential activities, they may be less inclined to donate blood.

And if the virus spreads to more people, fewer people may be eligible to donate because of new restrictions to keep our patients, staff, and donor centres safe.

A person having surgery might need a blood transfusion.
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Based on our forecasts for demand from Australian health providers, Australian Red Cross Lifeblood needs an additional 7,000 donors to make appointments to donate blood through to Easter Monday to prevent a shortage.

Who can donate?

Australia currently has around 500,000 blood donors, but millions of others may be eligible to donate.

Normally, if you’re aged between 18 and 76, weigh over 50kg and are healthy and well, you may be eligible. However, in keeping with government advice we encourage those aged 70 and over to postpone their donation during this period. There are other eligibility criteria which remain in place to ensure our patients and donors are safe from the risks we already understand.

Notably, there’s no evidence coronavirus or other respiratory viruses can be transmitted by blood transfusion.

But to be on the safe side, Lifeblood’s strict screening process means people who are unwell can’t donate.

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Read more:
Coronavirus: how long does it take to get sick? How infectious is it? Will you always have a fever? COVID-19 basics explained

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During the pandemic, Lifeblood has introduced new rules to protect the safety of staff, donors and patients, in line with recent recommendations from the World Health Organisation:

• anyone who has returned from overseas is unable to donate for 28 days after their return

• people who have been in close contact with a confirmed case of COVID-19 will have to wait 28 days before donating

• people who have been confirmed as having COVID-19 will not be able to donate until they are cleared by their doctor plus undergo an additional recovery period.

• people with mild cold-like symptoms will be unable to donate until they are fully recovered.

Am I allowed to travel to a donor centre, and is it safe?

As many states in Australia have limited non-essential activities, it’s important to understand blood and plasma donation is vital, and travel and venue restrictions don’t prevent people from giving blood.

Donor centres are strictly regulated spaces, monitored regularly by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. There’s a specific code that sets out requirements for staff, premises, collection procedures, quality control and testing, among other things.

Staff adhere to strict sanitation protocols including wearing gloves, wiping down surfaces after every donation and using single use sterile collection kits for every donation.

In addition to the usual hygiene practices and new restrictions to who can donate, Lifeblood is implementing further measures to help protect donors and staff, including:

• increased disinfecting of frequently used items

• providing additional hand sanitiser for donors to use

• additional daily disinfection of all areas in our centres including the donation floor, refreshment areas, reception and more

• restricting non-donating visitors to our centres (so only staff and donors are allowed in)

• providing public health information consistent with the latest official coronavirus advice in every centre

• implementing social distancing in our centres wherever possible, ensuring all donors are at least 1.5 metres away from all other donors.

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Read more:
Australia’s ethnic face is changing, and so are our blood types

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We’re appealing to anyone who has an appointment booked and who feels well to keep it.

If you’re a blood donor and haven’t made your next appointment, you can help by booking one in the next few weeks.

If you’re a blood donor who gave more than month ago, you may be able to donate plasma now.

And if you’ve never donated before, now is a great time to become a donor and help us maintain the nation’s blood supplies.

You can make an appointment online or call 13 14 95.

David Irving, Adjunct Professor, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Messianic Jewish Church Won’t Appeal Israeli Court Ruling

Congregation sought apology for riotous attack on baptism service.

ISTANBUL, July 14 (CDN) — A congregation of Messianic Jews in Israel who recently lost a lawsuit against an ultra-orthodox Jewish group that allegedly incited a riot against them has decided not to appeal their case, the church’s pastor said.

After meeting with his congregation and members of the Messianic community in Israel, Howard Bass, pastor of Yeshua’s Inheritance church in Beer Sheva, said that although there are strong legal grounds for an appeal, he believes it is not God’s will to do so.

“We didn’t see that it’s right to appeal, even though there is good legal basis. But we don’t feel it’s the Lord’s will to appeal,” Bass said, later adding he felt the verdict was “totally distorted.”

In 2007, Bass filed suit against Yehuda Deri, chief Sephardic rabbi in the city of Beer Sheva, and Yad L’Achim, an organization that fights against Messianic Jews in Israel, for allegedly inciting a riot at a December 2005 service that Bass was leading.

On Dec. 24, 2005, during a baptismal service in Beer Sheva, a group of about 200 men pushed their way into a small, covered structure being used to baptize two new Christians and tried to stop the service. Police were called to the scene but could not control the crowd.

Once inside the building, the assailants tossed patio chairs, damaged audiovisual equipment, threw a grill and other items into a baptismal pool, pushed Bass into the pool and broke his glasses.

In the days before the riot, Yad L’Achim issued notices to people about a “mass baptism” scheduled to take place at the facility in the city of 187,900 people, 51 miles (83 kilometers) southwest of Jerusalem. In the days after the riot, Deri bragged about the incident on a radio talk show, including a boast that Bass had been “baptized” at the gathering.

Bass demanded either a public apology for their alleged role in the attack, or 1.5 million shekels (US$389,052) from the rabbi and Yad L’Achim.

The case, Bass said, was to “honor the name of Jesus Christ in Israel.” He said he sought monetary damages "to show how serious the offenses were under the law."

The 2005 incident was the second time the church had to deal with an attack after Yad L’Achim disseminated false information about their activities.

On Nov. 28, 1998, a crowd of roughly 1,000 protestors broke into a Yeshua’s Inheritance service after the anti-Christian group spread a rumor that three busloads of kidnapped Jewish minors were being brought in for baptism. The assailants threw rocks, spit on parishioners and attempted to seize some of their children, Bass said.

Bass decided to file the 2007 suit after consulting with members of his congregation and the greater Messianic community in Israel. On June 29, he held much the same meeting, with participants deciding not to appeal. Bass relayed details of the meeting in a group e-mail sent to interested parties.

“No one present, nor any who have communicated with me in the past few days, had a conviction that an appeal is the clear will of God,” he said in the e-mail. “Some were uncertain; others were against.”

The judge issued his decision May 24. Bass read about the decision on May 30 on a government website. The judge ruled that Bass’ attorneys did not prove that the rabbi or the group incited the riot.

“He’s saying what happened inside the walls is separate from what happened outside the walls,” Bass said.

He said he was “astonished” at the judge’s bias in the decision.

“It was a bit amazing to see how one-sided it was,” he said, later adding, “It’s not a righteous judgment, it is a bad judgment.”

Bass said he believes the verdict is a “message from God” that injustice toward Jews who accept Jesus as the Messiah is now the “state of things” in Israel.

The judge ordered Bass to pay a fine to the defendants and cover their legal expenses for a total of approximately 155,000 shekels (US$40,123). The judge gave Bass until June 11 to pay the fine. Because of an outpouring of financial support, the fees were being rapidly paid off, Bass said.

“It’s amazing how quickly people started donating,” he said. “That to me is a further indication of God’s favor in the lawsuit. He’s covered it.”

He said a substantial portion of the donations came from inside Israel.

Also in his e-mail, Bass admitted to approaching the case with his hands tied out of respect for others.

“We did not take to court certain persons who clearly were instrumental in the riot, knowing that they would not testify against the Chief Rabbi or against Yad L’Achim,” Bass said. “We strived to respect the Chief Rabbi because he is the Chief Rabbi of the city, despite his total lack of regard” for the church.

 

Sanctioning Violence

Bass said the verdict may embolden those who want to attack Messianic Jews in Israel. At minimum, he said, the verdict leaves open the potential for future violence.

“They were given nothing to restrain them,” he said. “They were not warned at all by the judge to be careful of what they do.”

The Yeshiva World, a newspaper that caters to the Orthodox Jewish community, has called Messianic Jews both “missionaries” and a “cult.” The newspaper quoted a statement made by Rabbi Dov Lifschitz, founder and chairman of Yad L’Achim.

“We mustn’t become complacent in the face of the ongoing efforts of the missionaries, even as they are licking their wounds from this loss,” Lifschitz said. “This ruling encourages us to continue to fight them with all the legitimate means at our disposal.”

Bass said he understands that not appealing the court loss may lead to the impression that his faith community accepts the judge’s ruling, and because of that, some people in Israel may now side with Yad L’Achim and other anti-Messianic groups.

“We’ve leaving ourselves open to all kinds of opinions,” he said.

But Bass said he is looking at the case in the long term and through the eyes of God. He said that Jesus’ trial was the perfect example of a public defeat and a travesty of justice that God used in a great way.

“His court case seemed like a loss according to the world at the time,” Bass said.

Report from Compass Direct News

Assist Haiti – Donate to World Vision Australia

If you are wondering how to assist the people of Haiti, please consider donating to World Vision Australia at:

http://www.worldvision.com.au/Home.aspx

Perhaps you would like to sponsor a child from Haiti through World Vision?

There is plenty of information at the site on how to help.

Christmas commercialism combated by "Advent Conspiracy"

A growing number of Christian churches are joining forces with a grass-roots movement known as the Advent Conspiracy, which is seeking to "do away with the frenzied activity and extravagant gift-giving of a commercial Christmas," reports Thaddeus M. Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com.

The group was founded by Portland pastor Rick McKinley, who with a group of fellow pastors realized that their own, and their congregations’, focus during the time of Advent revolved more around secular consumerism than preparing to celebrate the birth of Christ.

"What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists," McKinley observed.

"And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?"

"None of us like Christmas," McKinley said in a Time.com report, adding, "That’s sort of bad if you’re a pastor. It’s the shopping, the going into debt, the worrying that if I don’t spend enough money, someone will think I don’t love them."

McKinley, whose church donates money to dig wells in developing countries through Living Water International and other organizations, saw that a fraction of the money Americans spend at retailers in the month of December could supply the entire world with clean water.

As a result he and his friends embarked on a plan to urge their congregations to spend less on presents for friends and family, and to consider donating the money they saved to support practical and tangible charitable works.

"If more Christians changed how they thought about giving at Christmas," he argued, "the holiday could be transformative in a religious and practical sense."

McKinley observed that at first church members were uncertain. "Some people were terrified," McKinley recalled. "They said, ‘My gosh, you’re ruining Christmas. What do we tell our kids?’"

Soon though, the idea caught on and McKinley found that not only were people "relieved to be given permission to slow down and buy less" but were "expressing their love through something more meaningful than a gift card. Once church members adjusted to this new conception of Christmas, they found that they loved it."

According to the Time.com report the Advent Conspiracy movement has exploded, counting hundreds of churches on four continents and in at least 17 countries as participants.

The Advent Conspiracy video has been viewed more than a million times on YouTube and the movement boasts nearly 45,000 fans on Facebook.

To find out more about the Advent Conspiracy, click here.

Report from the Christian Telegraph 

AUSTRALIA – BUSHFIRES: DEATH TOLL REACHES 175 AND CLIMBING

The death toll in the bushfires in Victoria has now reached 175 and continues to climb. There are some 5000 people homeless at this stage, with many more homes and communities under direct threat from the still raging bushfires.

In a display of national generosity and sympathy for bushfire victims, Australians have been digging deep and donating millions of dollars to the various relief appeals, as well as turning up at evacuation centres with donations of clothes, food, furniture and other items. Others are simply turning up and doing what they can to help out.

Sadly, just as there are many seeking to provide what assistance they can, there are others who are behaving in ‘un-Australian’ ways – there are looters operating in the bushfire regions, arsonists continuing to light fires, sight-seers getting in the way of fire-fighting and relief operations, etc. The full weight of the law has been promised against all arsonists that are caught and there are several currently known to police that are being pursued.

ABOVE: Aftermath of the bushfire at Chum Creek, near Healesville

ABOVE: Aftermath of the bushfire at Marysville

ABOVE: Aftermath of the bushfire at Narbethong