Archbishop Gordon doing well, encourages vaccination

ROMAN Catholic Archbishop Jason Gordon is expected to end his quarantine next week after testing positive for covid19 last Wednesday.

Catholic Media Services said in a statement that Gordon started experiencing flu-like symptoms and decided to test for the virus.

The archbishop's chapel was closed for sanitisation on Friday. The chapel will reopen on May 3.

Vicar general Martin Sirju who has been conducting mass and managing matters of the archdiocese told Newsday on Monday that Gordon is doing well.

He said the Archbishop has been experiencing mild symptoms but did not require hospitalisation.

He said the Archbishop should be out of quarantine sometime next week.

“He’s doing reasonably well. He will have some of the symptoms like the flu and sore throat and other typical symptoms like body pains and so on but nothing that would stop him from working considering he’s a very productive person.

"He continues to, on one hand, rest and take care of himself and also he continues to work quietly on matters that have to be attended to."

Before the launch of the national vaccination programme Gordon publicly called on the population to get vaccinated.

Sirju said, even in quarantine, Gordon continues to call on the unvaccinated to get the vaccine.

“His views on the vaccine have not changed. He recommends all people who can get the vaccine should take it. In addition to the three Ws (wash hands, wear a mask and watch your distance), the doctors talk about, all the time, the vaccine is also a very effective agent in preventing spread and we have seen a large number of infects over the past days. We should not take things lightly at this point.

“Let’s protect our neighbour and ourselves."