Covid-19: Could coronavirus lockdowns help close Latin America’s digital divide?


Teacher Sergio Ferrao finishes a lesson with students at Escuela 30, a rural school that has resumed classes after a month off due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), in San Jose, Uruguay. The 'digital divide' – the gap between those who have access to computers and the Internet, and those with limited or no access – is well documented between rural and urban areas. But quarantine measures around Latin America have also exposed a stark digital divide within the region's big cities – between the people in affluent neighbourhoods and those living in sprawling slums. — Reuters

BOGOTA: As Colombia enters its eighth week of coronavirus lockdown, street vendor Luis Duarte worries that his teenage daughter might not finish her school year now that her classes have moved online.

"We don't have a computer at home," said Duarte, who sells homemade face masks outside a supermarket in the capital Bogota to earn a living.

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