Long Island mom and COVID-19 survivor opens up about donating blood plasma
Survivor Corps founder Diana Berrent on the launching her group to help find a coronavirus cure.
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COVID-19 survivors are making a difference by donating plasma to critical patients and health workers, Long Island mother and Survivor Corps founder Diana Berrent said Friday.
In an appearance on "Fox & Friends First" with hosts Jillian Mele and Rob Schmitt, Berrent explained that Survivor Corps – a group focused on partnering with coronavirus researchers, blood banks and scientists – is now one of the fast-growing grassroots mobilization efforts to help the fight against the pandemic.
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The Survivor Corps Facebook group now has over 40,000 members and they have also just launched their own website.
"I mean, basically we are gathering an army of volunteers who were maybe unlucky enough to have gotten COVID, but lucky enough to have survived," she remarked. "And now [they] can use the antibodies that their body naturally created to contribute to science and to save lives. It's been an incredible, incredible movement."
Berrent, 45, was one of the first people in the Port Washington region to be diagnosed with the virus, and she was also one of the first survivors.
"I was the first participant at Columbia University's convalescent plasma program — their effort to recruit survivors to donate their blood and plasma. And, since then I have donated my plasma three times. I've also donated to a private biotech company," stated Berrent.
"Just yesterday I saw that Columbia University got FDA approval for their first clinical trial to use convalescent plasma — not just for critically ill patients but also for health workers in the early stages of the virus. Perhaps even before they get the virus," she continued further.
"To see that report and know that it's my plasma in there that's moving science forward, for somebody who hasn't taken a science class since their freshman year of college, that's a pretty incredibly motivating factor. And, there's a tremendous desire to help."
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"So, right now as a country, we are being told that the best thing you can do is do nothing. And, while that is in many ways true...if you come through the other side and you have those antibodies and you have the opportunity to contribute to science, it is such a ray of hope," Berrent added.
"I mean, I really think that Survivor Corps is the epicenter of hope right now," she concluded.
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