VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis said on Saturday that he planned to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as early as next week and urged everyone to have an injection, to protect not only their own lives, but also those of others.
“I believe that ethically everyone should get the vaccine,” said the Pope in an interview with TV channel Canale 5. “It is an ethical choice because you are playing with your health, with your life, but you are also playing with the lives of others . “
Vatican City, the world’s smallest independent county with about 450 inhabitants, including Pope Francis, said it would soon launch its own coronavirus vaccination campaign.
“Next week,” said the Pope, “we are going to start doing this here, in the Vatican, and I already signed up. It must be done”.
Pope Francis, 84, had part of a lung removed during an illness when he was young in his native Argentina, which made him potentially vulnerable to the disease.
Vatican City said last week that it hoped to receive enough doses of the COVID-19 vaccine in the following days to inoculate all its residents and employees who live beyond its walls in Rome.
As part of its vaccination plan, the Vatican said it bought an ultra-frozen refrigerator to store the doses, suggesting that it will use the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, which should be stored at minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit).
As excerpts from the interview were released, the Vatican News’ official website reported that the pope’s personal doctor, Fabrizio Soccorsi, had died of complications caused by COVID-19.
Soccorsi, 78, was hospitalized and undergoing cancer treatment. He was the Pope’s doctor since 2015.
Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Written by Giulio Piovaccari; Edition by Peter Graff and Chizu Nomiyama