Pope Francis on Wednesday urged countries to provide coronavirus vaccines for everyone when they become available.
“It would be sad if, for the vaccine for COVID-19, priority were to be given to the richest! It would be sad if this vaccine were to become the property of this nation or another, rather than universal and for all,” Francis said during his weekly general audience.
Francis’s comments came a day after the World Health Organization warned that some countries might hoard vaccines in what Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus termed as “vaccine nationalism.”
Francis in his speech, part of a monthly series on the wider effects of the coronavirus, said that, although finding a vaccine is essential, curing the virus of “social injustice, inequality of opportunity, marginalization, and the lack of protection for the weakest” was ultimately what world leaders should draw from the crisis.
“The pandemic is a crisis, and we do not emerge from a crisis the same as before: either we come out of it better, or we come out of it worse,” he said. “We must come out of it better to counter social injustice and environmental damage. Today we have an opportunity to build something different.”
Francis has been outspoken about how the virus has exposed social inequality, especially after Italy became one of the hardest-hit countries in March. In a dramatic televised event in which he blessed the world, Francis said that the shutdowns in many countries should be a time of reflection on the brokenness of the world before the pandemic.
“We were not shaken awake by wars or injustice across the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor nor of our gravely ailing planet,” Francis said. “We carried on regardless, thinking that we would stay healthy in a world that was sick.”
