They’re just introducing the population size of the cou try, for comparison with the number of people affected. Saying “a country of over 34 million people” is a quick way to do that, though it could’ve been rephrased as “Peru - which has a popularion of over 34 million people -” or something.
Point is, it’s just an incidental redundancy in the way they phrased their delivery of the population number, I think, not an attempt to tell people “Peru is a country.”
HA! Your edit just floored me, I didn’t even catch that. Lowest common denominator and all that jazz lol.
They’re just introducing the population size of the cou try, for comparison with the number of people affected. Saying “a country of over 34 million people” is a quick way to do that, though it could’ve been rephrased as “Peru - which has a popularion of over 34 million people -” or something.
Point is, it’s just an incidental redundancy in the way they phrased their delivery of the population number, I think, not an attempt to tell people “Peru is a country.”