Speaking after his weekly noon blessing, Francis said he had read newspaper reports of people catching flights to flee government curbs and seek fun elsewhere.

During the virus crisis, Francis has become a 21st century “prisoner of the Vatican,” as one of his predecessors was once known, robbed of the crowds, foreign travel and visits to the peripheries that so defined and popularized his papacy.

It was the first time that Francis had skipped giving the blessing and reading an address from the window since his election in 2013, apart from times he was traveling outside Rome.