Colombia Health Minister Fernando Ruiz announced this morning (June 24) that Colombia has now exceeded 16 million Covid-19 vaccinations -- and is averaging close to 300,000 daily, making its 17-million total-vaccinations-target by end-June likely a certainty.

Of those 16 million nationwide vaccinations, 5.4 million are second shots – as required by almost all the approved Covid-19 pharmaceuticals except for the Janssen/Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine, according to the Health Ministry.

The first-ever batch of 480,000 Janssen Covid-19 vaccines just arrived yesterday in Colombia – targeted for remote towns and rural areas in Colombia where ultra-cold storage and two-shot regimens as required by the other pharmaceuticals are problematic, the Ministry noted.

Colombia has already received more than 20 million doses of various Covid-19 vaccines, with another 1.5 million due this weekend, according to the Health Ministry.

Meanwhile, Antioquia has surpassed 2.4 million vaccination shots -- and Medellin is now past 1.1 million, according to the latest government statistics (reports to June 23).

On another encouraging front -- starting next week -- private companies throughout Colombia will begin vaccinating millions of their employees, in parallel with all the other, existing public vaccination campaigns organized by the Health Ministry, local clinics, hospitals, municipal governments and “EPS” health-insurance networks.

Despite all this good news, the bad news is that Colombia this week just passed the 100,000-total-deaths mark since the Covid-19 pandemic started 16 months ago (in early 2020).

Covid-19 deaths nationally have been averaging close to 600 daily in the past month – an all-time record, with thousands of those deaths attributed to reckless, mass-spreader events at scores of “Comite del Paro” protest marches from late April until mid-June.

As a result of these mass-spreader events, intensive care unit (ICU) occupancy remains at a dangerously high 97% in Antioquia and at similar levels in Bogota, according to latest government statistics.