A day after the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero reported that Pope Francis tested negative for the coronavirus, the Vatican confirmed that he is only suffering from a cold.
In a Wednesday statement, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that Francis’s cold was “running its course, without symptoms linked to other pathologies.”
Francis fell ill last Wednesday. He was seen coughing during Ash Wednesday mass after shaking the hands of several people in St. Peter’s Square. The Vatican reported on Thursday that Francis had developed only a “slight indisposition.”
The Vatican canceled the pope’s public events for the next three days, the longest absence in the 83-year-old pontiff’s tenure. When Francis appeared again on Sunday, he continued to cough and announced that he planned to skip a retreat because of his illness.
“Unfortunately, a cold will force me not take part this year,” he said. “I will follow the meditations from here.”
Italy has the largest outbreak of the coronavirus outside of Asia, with 93 deaths in the country. The center of the virus has been in northern Italy. The Italian government announced on Wednesday that it is closing all schools until mid-March to slow the virus’s outbreak.
