**2. About the Carso Group**

The Carso Group (CG) is a Mexico-based conglomerate of companies spanning five sectors: commercial, infrastructure and construction, industrial, energy, and banking [19]. CG comprises more than 50 companies, with operations in over 5000 locations throughout Mexico and approximately 180,000 employees. CG companies are located in 1333 municipalities (54.2% of the total municipalities) within the 32 Mexican states, and 83% of these are located in 20 metropolitan areas: 45.6% in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area, 4.1% in Puebla-Tlaxcala, 4.1% in Guadalajara, 3.9% in Tijuana, and 3.8% in Monterrey.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all economic activities globally, forcing governments and entities to implement actions to contain its transmission [20–22]. Among the most important of these, most economic activity has shifted to telework, with the exception of activities that are deemed essential [12, 15, 23]. Importantly, some CG companies are engaged in essential economic activities in areas such as telecommunications, banking, mining, and energy. In addition, CG employees have varying levels of risk, either owing to older age or underlying non communicable diseases (NCDs). Some employees are more vulnerable because the nature of their work requires constant interaction with others, such as those working in retail stores, or because their household or workplace is located in a municipality with a high risk of contagion.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CG Board of Directors commissioned the Carlos Slim Foundation (CSF), a non-profit independent organization linked with the Group, to design and implement a comprehensive response protocol to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace, with the goal of protecting the health of employees and their families, as well as suppliers and clients.

The CSF was founded in 1986. Its aim is to address social inequalities by improving quality of life for the most vulnerable populations by training human resources and promoting greater opportunities. The scope of work of the CSF spans education, employment, health, nutrition, social justice, culture, human development, natural disaster support, economic development, and environmental protection [24].

The Carso COVID Protocol is the result of the abovementioned efforts. The protocol is divided into two components, launched at different times during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico; Annex 1 provides greater detail regarding the policies and recommendations outlined in the Protocol:


The CSF has extensive expertise in the design, development, implementation, and scale-up of digital health (DH)-based solutions aimed at improving health care service delivery to strengthen primary care, with a strong focus on prevention [25]. Hence, the CSF convened a team of experts in different disciplines to design a COVID-19 digital health ecosystem to facilitate implementation of the Carso COVID Protocol.
