Amidst the Covid-19 outbreak, WA Alpha’s David Jaquish turned to student donors who’ve recovered from Covid-19 for convalescent plasma donations in an effort to help diagnosed patients recover from the disease.

Jaquish, who serves as Director of Service and Philanthropy for WSU’s Interfraternity Council, originally sought to conduct traditional blood drives when he partnered with Vitalant Blood Donations in September.

However when students who planned to donate contracted Covid-19, a regular blood drive became an issue.

In response to this, Jaquish and other members of the Greek community worked alongside Vitalant Blood Donations to organize numerous convalescent plasma drives for students who had recovered from Covid-19 with the first drive occurring on October 19th.

According to WSU Insider, convalescent plasma from donors who have recovered from Covid-19 contains antibodies that can be transfused to patients with severe cases of the disease in order to aid them in their recovery process.

A plasma drive was even held in the WA Alpha chapter facility on October 26th which yielded multiple donations.

Jaquish, who served as WA Alpha’s Vice President of Scholarship in 2018, believes that as the number of students who recover from cases increases, more plasma donations will be achieved.

“You can’t un-contract Covid-19,” Jaquish said. “The only thing you can do is try to make things better for others suffering from the disease.”

WSU Insider states that the goal is to collect between 70 and 80 plasma donations between now and the end of November. Plasma drives will be taking place at the Chinook Student Center.

Jaquish remains optimistic about the chance to coordinate plasma drives. As students continue to recover from Covid-19 and look to donate, he and his Interfraternity Council continue to plan and spread the word about plasma drives.