Colombia becomes tenth country in the world to reach 100,000 covid deaths

The South American nation has been registering a growing number of daily cases since April. Over the past seven days, it had the world’s third-highest per capita death rate from Covid-19, according to data published by Oxford University.

On Monday night, President Iván Duque blamed antigovernment protests that began at the end of April for the deaths, saying “more than 10,000 deaths could have been avoided.”

But epidemiologists in Colombia said it’s too soon to tell how much of an impact the protests had on the current surge in Covid deaths.

Photo: Men line up to buy products in Bogota, Colombia. EPA-EFE/Mauricio Duenas Castaneda