Red Cross Declares Second-Ever Blood Crisis as Donors Age Out

The American Red Cross declared a national blood crisis on Monday, only the second time it has done so in its 145-year history. Type O-positive blood, the most commonly transfused type in the country, has fallen below a single day’s supply nationwide.

The last time this happened, in January 2022, the organization said it was making changes so it would not happen again. Those changes reached hospitals. They never reached the shrinking, aging pool of people who actually roll up their sleeves to give blood, and that is exactly where this year’s shortage took hold.

A Four-Year Summer Low

Blood donations have dropped to their lowest point for any summer in four years, even as hospital demand has stayed elevated. The Red Cross, which supplies roughly 40% of the nation’s blood, issued a national blood emergency on July 13 after a 25% decline in the supply over the previous month. The situation kept sliding from there.

Chris Hrouda, president of Red Cross Biomedical Services, said in a statement announcing the crisis that this summer, blood donations simply are not keeping pace with hospital demand, and inventories, especially type O blood, remain under significant strain.

Several forces converged at once. The Red Cross points to a specific mix of factors behind the July shortfall:

• Extreme heat disrupted or canceled almost 100 blood drives in July, contributing to a shortfall of more than 19,000 donations for the month
• Poor air quality across parts of the country kept eligible donors from turning out to scheduled drives
• A wave of foodborne illness, including a cyclospora outbreak traced to parsley and cilantro in North Carolina, sidelined would-be donors
• Summer trauma cases, which typically climb with more travel and outdoor activity, kept hospitals pulling from an already thin supply

Platelets are in an emergency shortage of their own. They carry a shelf life of only five days, so even a short dip in donations turns into a crisis almost immediately.

What the Post-2022 Fixes Covered

The first-ever national blood crisis hit in January 2022, driven largely by the Omicron-variant surge in COVID-19 cases that winter. Blood supply slowly recovered to sufficient levels by that spring, and the Red Cross credited donors who answered the call for pulling the supply back from the edge.

Afterward, the organization said it had strengthened its systems. Hospitals now schedule about 65% of their anticipated blood needs in advance, the Red Cross has said, giving the organization more predictability over volume and location than the more reactive approach used before 2022.

Hrouda described the broader effort this way in the Monday statement: the Red Cross takes its responsibility as the nation’s largest single provider of blood products incredibly seriously and has worked tirelessly to strengthen the blood supply for its hospital partners.

Every fix the Red Cross has detailed publicly sits on the hospital side of the ledger, better scheduling, tighter coordination. The donor side kept eroding regardless.

The Donor Pool Kept Aging

Long before this summer’s heat waves, the group of Americans who actually donate blood was already thinning out and getting older. The Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies (AABB), the industry group that runs the country’s biennial blood supply census, has tracked the shift for over a decade.

Its most recent National Blood Collection and Utilization Survey, covering 2023, pointed to a donor base that keeps skewing older even as overall numbers held roughly stable that year.

• Average donor age hit 51 in 2023, up from 44 just a decade earlier
• Donations from 16-to-18-year-olds fell 10.1% over that same stretch
• Donations from donors over 65 rose 10.5%, shifting more of the burden onto retirees
• Red blood cell collections have trended downward in survey after survey since 2011

A donor base that leans older and thinner has less room to absorb a shock. When heat waves knocked out nearly 100 drives in a single month, there were fewer replacement donors standing by than there would have been a decade earlier.

Why Are Hospitals Rationing Type O Blood?

Hospitals are getting smaller, more tightly capped shipments of type O blood because the national inventory has dropped below a single day’s supply, forcing the Red Cross to ration what little it has across thousands of hospital partners rather than fill every request in full.

The Red Cross has started limiting distributions of type O blood to individual hospitals, a step it takes only when the numbers leave no other option. Type O is the most commonly transfused blood type in the country, used heavily in trauma cases where a patient’s own type has not yet been confirmed.

Without enough blood on hand, hospitals and doctors are forced to triage the limited supply they do have. That can mean delayed procedures or care that falls short of the optimal standard, including in situations where minutes matter.

The Other 60% Is Straining Too

The Red Cross is the single largest blood supplier in the country, but it only accounts for roughly 40% of the national supply. The remaining 60% runs through independent operators, including community blood centers and hospital-based collection programs.

On July 15, the Red Cross joined the Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies and America’s Blood Centers, the trade group representing most of those independent, non-Red Cross collectors, in a joint statement calling for more donors. The three organizations said reports from the previous month showed the nation’s blood supply running lower than needed for routine and emergency care, with many collection organizations across the country facing a critical shortage of their own this summer.

That three-way alignment is itself notable. Competing blood collectors do not often issue statements together, and doing so signals the strain extends well past any single organization’s donor list.

Getting to a Donation Chair This Week

Officials are asking eligible donors, particularly those with type O blood, to schedule an appointment rather than wait for the shortage to ease on its own. Donation sites remain open through the crisis, and appointments can be booked directly with the Red Cross or with a local independent blood center.

Every donation has the potential to help save lives, and we urgently need everyone who is eligible to make an appointment to give blood as soon as possible.

Hrouda made that appeal in the same statement announcing Monday’s crisis declaration. For now, the inventory the country is running on measures in hours, not weeks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is eligible to donate blood?

Roughly two-thirds of Americans meet the basic eligibility requirements around age, weight and general health, according to the Red Cross, yet only about 3% of eligible people actually donate in a given year. That gap between who could give and who does is what leaves the system with so little cushion even outside a declared crisis.

How is a blood crisis different from a routine shortage?

Blood supply runs tight almost every summer and winter as travel picks up and donor turnout dips. A formal crisis declaration is rarer; the Red Cross has only used the designation twice, first in January 2022 and now in July 2026, both times tied to a national type O-positive supply falling below a single day on hand.

Why do platelet shortages happen so fast?

Platelets last just five days after donation, compared with weeks for red blood cells, so the supply has to be replenished constantly. A short dip in donor turnout that red cells could absorb turns into an emergency for platelets almost immediately, which is why the Red Cross is currently facing a platelet shortage on top of the broader crisis.

Is it safe to donate blood during a heat wave?

Yes. Donation centers are climate controlled, and the Red Cross recommends donors hydrate well before and after an appointment, guidance it has repeated often this summer given how many July drives were disrupted by heat rather than by any risk to donors themselves.

How can someone find a blood donation appointment?

Appointments can be booked through the Red Cross or through a local independent blood center affiliated with America’s Blood Centers, several of which have also reported shortages this summer. Officials are asking donors to book directly rather than wait for a drive to come to them, since disrupted drives are part of what caused this shortfall.