US drugstores squeezed by vaccine demand, staff shortages

A rush of vaccine-seeking customers and
staff shortages are squeezing drugstores around the U.S., leading to frazzled
workers and temporary pharmacy closures.

Drugstores are normally busy this time of
year with flu shots and other vaccines, but now pharmacists are doling out a
growing number of COVID-19 shots and giving coronavirus tests.

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The push for shots is expected to grow more
intense as President Joe Biden urges vaccinated Americans to get booster shots
to combat the emerging omicron variant. The White House said Thursday that more
than two in three COVID-19 vaccinations are happening at local pharmacies.

And pharmacists worry another job might
soon be added to their to-do list: If regulators approve antiviral pills from
drugmakers Merck and Pfizer to treat COVID-19, pharmacists may be able to
diagnose infections and then prescribe pills to customers.

“There’s crazy increased demand on
pharmacies right now,” said Theresa Tolle, an independent pharmacist who has
seen COVID-19 vaccine demand quadruple since the summer at her Sebastian,
Florida, store.

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Pharmacists say demand for COVID-19
vaccines started picking up over the summer as the delta variant spread
rapidly. Booster shots and the expansion of vaccine eligibility to include
children have since stoked it.

On top of that workload and routine
prescriptions, many drugstores also have been asking pharmacists to counsel
patients more generally on their health or about chronic conditions like
diabetes and high blood pressure.

Pharmacies also have been handling more
phone calls from customers with questions about vaccines or COVID-19 tests,
noted Justin Wilson, who owns three independent pharmacies in Oklahoma.

“We’re all working a lot harder than we did
before, but we’re doing everything we can to take care of people,” Wilson said,
adding that he has not had to temporarily close any of his pharmacies or limit
hours so far.

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Tolle said she was lucky to hire a pharmacy
resident just before the delta surge arrived. The new employee was supposed to
focus mostly on diabetes programs but has largely been relegated to vaccine
duty.

Tolle said her Bay Street Pharmacy is now
giving about 80 COVID-19 vaccines a day, up from 20 before the delta wave.

“God’s timing worked out well for me,” she
said. “We would not have gotten through without having that additional person
here.”

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Others haven’t been as fortunate. A CVS
Health store on the northeast side of Indianapolis shuttered its pharmacy in
the middle of the afternoon Thursday due to staffing issues. A sign taped to
the metal gate over the closed pharmacy counter also told customers that the
pharmacy will soon start closing for a half hour each afternoon so the
pharmacist can have a lunch break.

Such temporary closures have ebbed and
flowed in pockets around the country throughout the pandemic, but they have
grown more acute in recent months, said Anne Burns, a vice president with the
American Pharmacists Association.

Pharmacies all need minimum staffing to
operate safely, and they sometimes have to close temporarily if they fall below
those levels.

Burns said many pharmacies already had
relatively thin staffing levels heading into the pandemic, and a wave of
pharmacists and pharmacy technicians left after the virus hit.

“There is a lot of stress and burnout for
individuals who have been going at this since March of 2020,” she said.

CVS Health spokesman T.J. Crawford said he
couldn’t comment on the circumstances for one store. But he said his company
continues “to manage through a workforce shortage that isn’t unique to CVS
Health.”

Rival drugstore chain Walgreens also has
adjusted pharmacy hours “in a limited number of stores,” spokesman Fraser
Engerman said.

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Both companies are hiring. CVS Health says
it has hired 23,000 employees from a push it started in September. About half
of that total was pharmacy technicians, who can deliver vaccines.

As companies scramble to hire or keep
staff, Burns and Tolle worry about adding even more responsibilities like
diagnosing and treating COVID-19.

Tolle noted that it is not clear yet how
pharmacists will be reimbursed for the time they take to diagnose and
prescribe. That will have to be clarified, especially if cases surge again and
drugstores need to add even more workers to help.

“We want to be able to help our
communities,” she said. “I don’t know how pharmacies are going to
manage it.”

Sherri Brown, a city employee in Omaha,
Nebraska, was searching for a vaccine booster dose, but two nearby pharmacies
didn’t have appointments available and a third didn’t have the brand she
wanted. She wound up getting a shot at a county-run clinic on Friday.

“I just wanted to protect myself,” said
Brown, who suffered through two weeks of coughing, headaches and fatigue when
she caught the virus in January, before she was vaccinated. “I guess I’m
encouraged to see that people are taking this more seriously.”