The nationwide epidemic alert level 3 has affected the public’s willingness to donate blood, and thus the blood banks in Taiwan are running low. Eastern Commerce Company (Eckare), a subsidiary of Eastern Group, immediately called on its employees to roll up their sleeves and donate blood. Today (7/2), a blood drive was held at the plaza in front of the headquarters in Zhonghe in cooperation with the Taipei Blood Center. More than 100 bags of blood were donated in one day while maintaining strict social distance. Eckare said that to fulfill its corporate social responsibility, the company holds two blood donation drives every year. When the company learned of the blood shortage during the pandemic, it immediately arranged to bring forward the date of the blood drive, and employees happily responded to this call.

According to the Taiwan Blood Services Foundation, generally, the safe stock level of blood is an inventory that can support more than seven days, but since the pandemic escalated to level 3 alert, the public’s willingness to donate blood has decreased by 50% to 60%. Statistics taken on June 24 showed that only 4.8 days of safe blood inventory level remained across Taiwan, while the situation was the worst in Taipei with only 4.3 days left. The main reason affecting people’s willingness to donate blood is the fact that people are going out less. Coupled with the smaller space in the bloodmobile, where one has to roll up one’s sleeves and get a needle inserted to donate blood, blood donation is inevitably seen as a risk by the general public during the pandemic. The blood bank is currently suffering a shortage of all blood types and is urging the public to donate blood as the pandemic is slowing down.

Chairman Gary Wang of Eckare said that Eastern is not only about business, it is also about public welfare. He was very worried when he learned about the blood shortage last week. So Eckare specially arranged for a bloodmobile to come to the headquarters in Zhonghe immediately and held a one-day event called “Eastern Gives Blood to Show Love.” Hundreds of employees from Eastern Group responded to the call to donate blood, and many of them even chose to donate up to 500cc to help alleviate the blood shortage.

Eckare stressed that since the event was held during the pandemic period, precautionary measures were taken during the blood drive, including a real-name registration system, body temperature measurement, and disinfection with alcohol. A check-in area, a rest area, and a waiting area were set up onsite, each with a social distance of one meter, and crowd control was also implemented. To encourage people to donate blood, for each bag of blood donated, donors were given a choice of one of five gifts, including Yorozu Bisio Sweet Soy Sauce from the 100-year-old Japanese brand Yuasa Soy Sauce, Okinawa brown sugar and ginger powder, CooKing cooking kits, JP Med’s age-defying collagen drink, and VANT 36.5 10X Air Touch CC Cushion Kit.

Eckare said that the blood drive was held from 9:30 to 16:30, for a total of seven hours. As the bloodmobile was parked in the square in front of the company headquarters, many local residents and enthusiastic passersby also wanted to donate blood. However, the blood drive was only open to Eastern employees due to pandemic prevention concerns, since all of the employees had received the PCR test with a negative result, it made the event relatively safe. After excluding those not suitable for blood donation, 74 people successfully donated a total of 110 bags (27,500 cc) of blood. Eckare will continue to implement Chairman Gary Wang’s passion for public welfare. As long as society is in need, we will send our love to every corner.