Mexican magnate Carlos Slim, infected by covid-19

Mexican businessman Carlos Slim, in a file photo.AFP

Mexican businessman Carlos Slim has tested positive for covid-19.

The richest man in Mexico had gone preventively to the National Institute of Nutrition for clinical analysis, monitoring and treatment.

After a week with minor symptoms, his son Carlos Slim Domit reported this Monday on Twitter that his father is progressing favorably.

The magnate, who has participated through the Carlos Slim Foundation to expand the hospital capacity of Mexico City and distribute the vaccine in the country, is at 80 years of age a person at high risk for contracting the disease.

The son of one of the richest men in the world has assured that his father "is doing very well and has had a very favorable evolution."

Slim is ranked number 21 in the largest international fortunes, according to Forbes, and his assets are valued at $ 60 billion thanks to his telecommunications companies in Mexico.

However, he has attended a public health center, the Salvador Zubirán National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition, in the capital.

The owner of Telmex, Telcel, Claro and América Móvil has contributed to the attention of the coronavirus health crisis in Mexico with the expansion of the hospital beds at the Citibanamex center, converted to a covid-19 hospital, and with the distribution of the vaccine from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford.

Slim is one of the 10,872 cases of coronavirus registered in the last day in Mexico, a country that accumulates almost 170,000 deaths.

The positive of the businessman is the second case of coronavirus in public figures that hits Mexico in 24 hours.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced this Sunday also through Twitter that he had been infected and that he was leaving the Secretary of the Interior, Olga Sánchez Cordero, as a substitute.

“The symptoms are mild, but I am already under medical treatment.

As always, I am optimistic.

We will all move forward, ”wrote the 63-year-old president, who has repeatedly refused during the pandemic to use the mask in his public acts.

I comment that my father preventively attended the National Institute of Nutrition for clinical analyzes, monitoring and timely treatment, he is very well and has had a very favorable evolution to Covid after more than a week of minor symptoms.

- Carlos Slim Domit (@Carlos_Slim_D) January 25, 2021

Last October, when the second wave had not yet catastrophically hit the country, Slim warned that the global hit from the COVID-19 pandemic requires new and daring plans to combat unemployment and save companies from bankruptcy.

This "invisible virus has generated an unusual economic and social situation that will lead to a new normal, although many things will no longer be the same," he said during his virtual participation in a meeting of the Spanish Confederation of Directors and Executives (CEDE).

The Slim family had already experienced the disease closely at the beginning of the pandemic, when a ski trip in Colorado ended up initiating an outbreak among the Mexican elite.

Among the passengers affected was businessman José Kuri (71), Carlos Slim's cousin and director of Banco Inbursa, who landed in Toluca with Jaime Ruiz Sacristán (70), president of the Mexican Stock Exchange.

Sacristán ended up dying a month later from the disease.