Quick update: Masks available for June 2 voters, blood drive details dialed in for June 23
Monroe County in-person voting sites on June 2 will have masks available for voters who want to wear one. And the details for a June 23 blood drive at the Monroe County convention are now set. Appointments can be made for times between 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Monroe County convention center.
Those two items were among the news nuggets passed along by Monroe County’s director of emergency management, Allison Moore, at Friday’s weekly press conference on COVID-19 response issues.
On Friday, Moore reported that the county is expecting next week another drop of personal protection equipment (PPE)—like masks, gloves and sanitizer—from the state’s department of homeland security.
She also said that 1,000 surgical masks had been delivered to Monroe County’s Election Central, to be distributed to voters who want to vote in person. The state’s election division had earlier provided every county with some PPE to equip election staff, but not voters.
Moore urged that anyone who is “on the fence” about voting, and who does not have a mask of their own, and would vote if a mask were available, to come on out to the polls. Earlier, Monroe County election supervisor Karen Wheeler told The Square Beacon that voters are not required to wear a mask in order to vote in person.
The details of a blood drive that’s been in the works for a while were released by Moore during the press conference. The convention center, at 3rd Street and College Avenue, was chosen as a location because it will allow people to be spread out to maintain enough distance to help reduce chance of spreading the COVID-19 virus.
Moore said that as hospitals start to reopen for ordinary services, a “dire shortage” of blood is anticipated around the end of June.
Donors to the June 23 blood need to make an appointment. That can be done on the Red Cross website. The links in this article go directly to the sign-up on the Red Cross website for the June 23 blood drive at the convention center.
Visitors are greeted with a pop-up window that asks if you want help scheduling an appointment. If you just want to schedule the appointment on the website, not by phone, click on the “No, thanks” option. The title for the June 23 drive listed on the Red Cross website is “Monroe County Commissioners Office”—because that’s the event “sponsor,” not the location of the drive.
Prospective donors will need to create an account to make an appointment on the Red Cross website. Creating an account and scheduling a time for donation was timed at about 2 minutes by The Square Beacon.
Visitors to the Red Cross website who are searching for the June 23 blood drive using the code “monroecty” will need to make sure the date parameters are set to include June 23—the default is 14 days out.
The Red Cross website indicates that donors must wear a mask.
