Here’s Something CVS And Walgreens Can Do That Amazon Can’t: Give You A Covid-19 Vaccination

CVS Health, Walgreens and other neighborhood pharmacies are touting their ability to administer Covid-19 vaccines once available as online retail giant Amazon pushes deeper into the prescription business.

The stocks of major brick-and-mortar drugstore chains were hit hard with Tuesday’s announcement that Amazon is launching a new online store called “Amazon Pharmacy” that allows its U.S. customers to order prescription drugs to their homes with its Prime customers receiving free delivery of their medications.

But drugstore chains including CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens and Walmart are ramping up marketing of their in-person healthcare services, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic opening hundreds of diagnostic testing facilities and making plans to administer vaccines against the virus once they become available. And that could mean tens of millions of customers in the coming months inside the brick-and-mortar of drugstore chains, grocers and retailers with pharmacies given recent news that Covid-19 vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer are nearing U.S. approval.

“The United States government will make a supply of the COVID-19 vaccine available to CVS Health when authorized and available to administer in pharmacies nationwide,” CVS said in an e-mail to customers last week. “We will offer it to the public through our 10,000 locations, following established vaccine prioritization guidelines.”

Last week, the Trump administration unveiled a list of drugstore chains, independent pharmacies, grocers and retailers that have signed on to administer Covid-19 vaccines. Neither Amazon nor its Whole Foods grocery unit were on the list.

The distribution of Covid-19 vaccinations will be complicated but these drugstores say they will be prepared.

CVS chief executive Larry Merlo said in an interview this month that CVS drugstores with a pharmacy will have expanded cold storage and related facilities for vaccines.

Some vaccines in late-stage U.S. testing need to be stored at minus 80 degrees Celsius, which is minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit. Such storage and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines is key to the massive logistics effort that will be needed to reach hundreds of millions of Americans.

“When that vaccine is available and we get the call (asking), ‘are you ready’ we are going to be in a position to say, ‘where do you want us to go,’” Merlo said in the interview. “There are going to be different storage and handling requirements. We are ensuring that we have those capabilities in our stores.”

Drugstores with pharmacies are expected to play a key role along with hospitals, mobile vaccination vehicles as well as state, local and federal health agencies to make sure Americans are vaccinated via an effective implementation plan, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention told a panel of experts advising the Food and Drug Administration last month.

More broadly, the ability to administer vaccines during the pandemic is part of a broader strategy of brick-and-mortar retail pharmacy chains to fill their stores with healthcare services, making drugstores and convenient location for everything from a physical and urgent care to a diagnostic test.

CVS, for example, is in the second year of its three-year plan to have 1,500 HealthHubs by the end of next year that include hundreds of new healthcare items and services. And Walgreens earlier this year said it will invest $1 billion in its primary care partner VillageMD to open 500 to 700 physician-staffed clinics inside its drugstores in more than 30 U.S. markets within the next five years.

“With more than 9,000 stores in local communities across the country, Walgreens offers unparalleled access to a trusted and personal relationship and expertise with our network of more than 25,000 pharmacists nationwide, providing specialized support for chronic, complex conditions, medication therapy management and vaccinations,” Walgreens spokeswoman Kelli Teno said.