Major pharmacies to close some locations on weekends due to staffing shortages
(NewsNation Now) — With swelling Omicron cases causing the great American sickout, major pharmacies like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid are being forced to temporarily close their doors on weekends due to intense staffing shortages.
A CVS spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that the closures are “to help address acute staffing issues amidst both the Omicron surge and the workforce shortage affecting nearly every industry and company.”
There are more than 9,900 CVS locations and more than 9,000 Walgreens locations across the country and both companies stress the closures should only impact a small fraction of those locations. However, neither chain would specify how many locations are seeing reduced hours or weekend closures.
“While the vast majority of our stores are open and operating with normal business hours, the ongoing labor shortage combined with the surge of COVID-19 cases has resulted in isolated instances in which we’ve had to adjust operating hours or temporarily close a limited number of stores,” Walgreens officials wrote in a statement to NewsNation.