Prognosis
Pandemic Tests Differing Strategies of Rival Drugstore Giants
CVS has become a health conglomerate, while Walgreens has focused keenly on retail. They face a common challenge in Covid-19.
People wearing protective masks wait in line to get into a Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. store in Queens, New York, in April.
Photographer: Jeenah Moon/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
In the first few weeks of March, as the seriousness of the coronavirus began to sink in across America, people rushed to drugstores to buy as much toilet paper, hand sanitizer, Tylenol and cough medicine as they could find.
For the nation’s largest pharmacy chains, it was like a shot in the arm.