U.S. hospitals have treated at least 15 patients for methanol poisoning associated with contaminated hand sanitizers, the CDC stated in a report this week.

Advocate Aurora Health is suspending its COVID-19 testing locations in Illinois and closing all but one of its community testing sites in Wisconsin due to limited testing supplies. 

Ten hospitals and health systems posted job listings for supply chain expertise in the last week:

Ascension Via Christi said Aug. 5 that its supply of convalescent plasma has been depleted in its Wichita, Kan., hospitals, The Wichita Eagle reported.

Public health officials don't expect there will be enough COVID-19 vaccine doses to cover high-risk populations until at least next year, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the CEO of the state's hospital association disagree on why hospitals in the state are still facing a shortage of masks, CalMatters reported. 

The FDA's rules surrounding KN95 masks — masks made in China that were supposed to provide similar levels of protection as N95 masks — have allowed hundreds of mask brands to be sold with little oversight and few quality checks, leaving some states with stockpiles of the masks that they no longer trust as protective gear, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

The Federal Trade Commission filed lawsuits against three online personal protective equipment sellers Aug. 5, alleging they failed to deliver on promises that they could quickly ship face masks, sanitizer and other PPE to protect against COVID-19. 

As medical professionals grapple with the acute impact of the novel coronavirus in their communities, distributors face a formidable challenge of their own — delivering vital COVID-19 supplies amid unprecedented demand and unpredictable supply chain dynamics. For pharmaceutical and medical-surgical leaders at McKesson, this global crisis has also been a catalyst for agile adaptation.

Becton, Dickinson and Co. said July 30 it has received $24 million from the U.S. Department of Defense and HHS to support scaling up manufacturing capacity for its COVID-19 diagnostic test. 

Group purchasing organization Vizient and other medical supply chain leaders testified before Congress July 30 emphasizing the need for greater transparency in the medical supply chain and detailing the challenges health systems have faced in getting supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

A report released July 31 from Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee found that HHS overpaid by as much as $500 million for ventilators to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, The Hill reported. 

Ten hospitals and health systems posted job listings for supply chain expertise in the last week:

Johns Hopkins Health System is now paying $9 for surgical gowns that used to cost 40 cents before the pandemic, Lisa Ishii, MD, senior vice president of operations at the Baltimore-based health system wrote in an article for Vox. 

Quest Diagnostics said July 29 that the FDA has granted emergency use authorization for a new lab technique that speeds up the COVID-19 testing process and will allow it to expand its daily testing capacity and improve turnaround times. 

Leaders from freight and shipping companies told Bloomberg the industry isn't ready to handle shipping a COVID-19 vaccine to billions of people around the world. 

The FDA has placed certain brands of hand sanitizer on an import alert as more products have been found to contain methanol, a chemical that can be toxic when absorbed into the skin or ingested. 

Demand for see-through masks has skyrocketed in recent months, particularly among deaf and hard-of-hearing populations, NPR reported. 

The COVID-19 pandemic amplified numerous challenges within the U.S. supply chain, from the scarcity of procurement sources to vetting an influx of new entrants to the market. Supply chain leaders have had to be extremely flexible, experiment with new procurement strategies and quickly find new sources of supply to keep up with the demand for personal protective equipment, ventilators and other medical supplies to treat COVID-19 patients.