VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Wednesday warned against any prospect that rich people would get priority for a coronavirus vaccine.
“The pandemic is a crisis. You don’t come out of it the same — either better or worse,” Francis said, adding improvised remarks to his planned speech for his weekly public audience.
“We must come out better” from the COVID-19 pandemic, the pope said.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, the pope said, the world can’t return to normality if normal means social injustice and environmental degradation.
Francis said: “How sad it would be if for the COVID-19 vaccine priority is given to the richest.”
He also said it would be scandalous if all the economic assistance in the works, most of it using public funds, ends up reviving industries that don’t help the poor or the environment.
“The pandemic has laid bare the difficult situation of the poor and the great inequality that reigns in the world,” the pope said in his speech. ”And the virus, while it doesn’t make exceptions among persons, has found in its path, devastating, great inequalities and discrimination,” Francis said, adding “and it has increased them.
Throughout the pandemic, many poor, who often have jobs that don’t allow them to work from home, have found themselves less able to shelter from possible contagion during stay-at-home strategies enacted by many nations to reduce the contagion rate. Access to the best health care for the poor is often impossible in many parts of the world.
Francis said response to the pandemic must be twofold. On one hand, “it’s indispensable to find the cure for such a small but tremendous virus, that brings the entire world to its knees.”
On the other hand, “we must treat a great virus, that of social injustice, of inequality of opportunity, of being marginalized and of lack of protection of the weakest,” Francis said.
Francis has dedicated much of his papacy to highlighting the plight of those living on life’s margins, saying societies must put them at the center of their attention.
Noting how many are eager to return to normality and resume economic activity, Francis voiced caution: “Sure, but this ‘normality’ must not include social injustices and degradation of the environment.”
“Today we have an occasion to build something different. For example, we can grow an economy of integral development of the poor and not of welfare,” the pope said.
Rich can’t get priority for vaccine, poor need help, Pope says
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Rich can’t get priority for vaccine, poor need help, Pope says
- After the COVID-19 pandemic, the pope said, the world can’t return to normality if normal means social injustice and environmental degradation
- Francis has dedicated much of his papacy to highlighting the plight of those living on life’s margins
Trump says he asked Putin not to target Kyiv for 1 week during brutal cold spell
- “I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this ... extraordinary cold,” Trump said
- Zelensky, for his part, thanked Trump for his effort and welcomed the “possibility” of a pause
KYIV: US President Donald Trump said Thursday that President Vladimir Putin has agreed not to target the Ukrainian capital and other towns for one week as the region experiences frigid temperatures.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Kremlin that Putin has agreed to such a pause.
Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, hoping to wear down public resistance to the war while leaving many around the country having to endure the dead of winter without heat.
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire on Kyiv and the cities and towns for a week during this ... extraordinary cold,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, adding that Putin has “agreed to that.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked earlier Thursday whether a mutual halt on strikes on energy facilities was being discussed between Russia and Ukraine, and he refused to comment on the issue.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky late Wednesday had warned that Moscow was planning another large-scale barrage despite plans for further US-brokered peace talks at the weekend.
Trump said he was pleased that Putin has agreed to the pause. Kyiv, which has grappled with severe power shortages this winter, is forecast to enter a brutally cold stretch starting Friday that is expected to last into next week. Temperatures in some areas will drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius (minus 22 Fahrenheit), the State Emergency Service warned.
“A lot of people said, ‘Don’t waste the call. You’re not going to get that.’” the Republican US president said of his request of Putin. “And he did it. And we’re very happy that they did it.”
Zelensky, for his part, thanked Trump for his effort and welcomed the “possibility” of a pause in Russian military action on Kyiv and beyond. “Power supply is a foundation of life,” Zelensky said in his social media post.
Trump did not say when the call with Putin took place or when the ceasefire would go into effect. The White House did not immediately respond to a query seeking clarity about the scope and timing of the limited pause in the nearly four-year war.
Russia has sought to deny Ukrainian civilians heat and running water over the course of the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. Ukrainian officials describe the strategy as “weaponizing winter.”
Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022 as Russia intensified its aerial barrages behind the front line, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in the country.
The war killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in Ukraine — 31 percent higher than in 2024, it said.
