Formatting number in Eloquent query or Yarja Datatables

I am writing a searchable table which includes the area and population. Here is the basic query:

public function getCountryData()
  {
    $co = DB::table('countries')->leftJoin('country_detail','country_detail.country_id','=','countries.id')->addSelect(['countries.id','countries.name','country_detail.capital','country_detail.area','country_detail.iso3','country_detail.population','country_detail.currencyName','country_detail.phone','country_detail.continent'])->get();
    return Datatables::of($co)
    ->addColumn('action', function($co){
                            $btn = '<div style="float:right">
                            <a href="'. route('country.edit',$co->id) .'  " class="btn btn-outline-secondary btn-xs" title="edit" style="margin-right:.5em">'.getEditIcon().'</a><a href="'. route('country.show', $co->id) .'" class="btn btn-outline-secondary btn-xs" title="images" style="margin-right:.5em">'.getBinoculars().'</a>';

                             return $btn;
                     }) ->rawColumns(['action'])
                 ->make(true);

  }

All this works fine in my view except that the population field, for example, returns something like 29121286 and of course I want to format it so it is 29,121,286.

Can this be done in the query or something in Datatables itself?

via Chebli Mohamed