Canadian Blood Services welcomes unvaccinated donors – CBC
Oct 06, 2021
Canadian Blood Services is encouraging people to donate blood, even if they haven’t been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Gina Leyva, the territory manager at Canadian Blood Services for Waterloo region, says her team has received a lot of questions from people asking whether they can donate blood if they are unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated.
The short answer is “yes, they can,” said Leyva.
While Ontario now requires people to show proof of vaccination to access some non-essential businesses, such proof is not required to enter a blood donor clinic.
On its website, Canada Blood Services notes that the novel coronavirus is a respiratory virus.
Dr. Steven Drews, associate director of microbiology at Canadian Blood Services, said in a March 2020 statement that there is “absolutely no evidence of [blood] transfusion transmission for COVID-19, or any other coronavirus,” including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and other influenza viruses.
