Delivery company to fly medications by drone to US retirement community

Drone deliveries hold promise for ferrying medicine and other goods to people who need them quickly or who can’t leave home, and are especially useful when people are being ask to say home to stop the spread of the virus. — Dreamstime/TNS

United Parcel Service Inc will use drones to fill prescriptions for residents of The Villages in Florida, one of the country’s biggest retirement communities, amid a lockdown to halt the coronavirus.

The time-sensitive deliveries from a CVS store about a half mile away are scheduled to begin early May. They will mark the first paid residential deliveries by UPS’s drone unit Flight Forward, which received approval last year to operate under relaxed rules for commercial lightweight unmanned aircraft.