Peru has the world's highest COVID death rate. Here's why
People in Iquitos, Peru, refer to their city as "una isla," an island, even though it's not an island. Iquitos is a port city of roughly 400,000 people on the Amazon River in northeastern Peru. Residents proudly note that it's the largest city in the world that's unreachable by road. You can only get there by boat or by plane.
In the early days of the COVID pandemic being isolated seemed like an advantage. It might delay the arrival of the virus. It might make it easier to contain. But that didn't turn out to be the case for Iquitos.
The first COVID cases appeared in Iquitos in March of 2020 at a time when cases were starting to pop up in many parts of the world.
"We were hearing news about the pandemic in other countries," says Catholic priest Raymond Portelli, who is also a physician. "But sincerely, we thought it wasn't going to be that disastrous and it wasn't going to come to Iquitos."
The disaster unfolding in Iquitos would quickly play out across the South American nation. Peru's death toll from COVID is now the worst in the world,
