Vatican workers could lose their jobs for refusing COVID vaccine

Rome – The Vatican has taken a hard line against employees who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19, warning they risk losing their jobs.

According to a decree by Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, whose role as president of the Pontifical Commission for the State of Vatican City makes him the main administrator of the territory, employees who refuse the vaccine “for no proven health reason” incur sanctions up to “interruption of work. relation.”

Vatican City is the smallest independent state in the world, located in the heart of Rome. It employs several thousand people, most of whom actually live outside the 100-acre walled territory and inside Italy proper.

Those who reside within the walls of the Vatican tend to be older people, like retired Pope Benedict XVI, 93, and Pope Francis, 84. pontiff has been vaccinated against COVID-19 last month and has been a big supporter of inoculation in the global fight against coronavirus.

“It is an ethical choice because you are playing with your health, with your life, but you also play with the lives of others”, Francis told an Italian TV channel last month.

Bertello, who runs daily life in Vatican City, tested positive for the coronavirus in December. Fewer than 30 people in the Vatican have contracted the disease.

Last month, the Vatican began to vaccinate the homeless who are cared for in food and health establishments in the territory.

Under Francis, the Vatican set up a number of facilities to help Rome’s homeless population, providing areas for people to bathe and cut their hair, as well as food and healthcare. This winter, it began offering free COVID tests to migrants and the homeless, directly under the window where the Pope delivers his Angelus Sunday prayer in St. Peter’s Square.

Italy, once the epicenter of the global pandemic, is now grappling with a second wave worse than the first, along with new variants of the virus like the one first discovered in the UK, which now represents a new out of five cases.

More than 94,000 deaths have been blamed on the virus in Italy, the second highest death toll in Europe behind the UK.