VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis said on Saturday he planned to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as early as next week and urged everyone to have a chance, not just to protect their own lives , but also that of others.
“I think ethically everyone should take the vaccine,” the Pope said in an interview with TV channel Canale 5. “It’s an ethical choice because you gamble with your health, with your life, but you also gamble with lives. . of others.”
Vatican City, the smallest independent province in the world, home to about 450 people, including Pope Francis, has said it will soon launch its own vaccination campaign against the coronavirus.
“Next week,” said the Pope, “we’ll start doing it here, in the Vatican, and I’ve booked myself. It has to be done.”
Pope Francis, 84, had part of a lung removed during an illness when he was a young man in his native Argentina, leaving him potentially vulnerable to the disease.
Vatican City said last week it expected to receive enough COVID-19 vaccine doses in the following days to inoculate all residents and workers living outside the walls of Rome.
As part of its vaccination plan, the Vatican said it purchased an ultra-cold refrigerator to store doses, suggesting it will use the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which should be stored at about minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit).
When excerpts from the interview were released, the official Vatican News website reported that the Pope’s personal physician, Fabrizio Soccorsi, had died from complications from COVID-19.
Soccorsi, 78, was hospitalized and treated for cancer. He had been the Pope’s doctor since 2015.
Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Written by Giulio Piovaccari; Editing by Peter Graff and Chizu Nomiyama