How are construction activities being impacted by COVID-19?
Many industries have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, not only indirectly by employees self-isolating or otherwise staying at home, but also directly in a variety of different ways.
Construction is one of the sectors most directly hit, with a cliff-edge drop in activity overnight at the start of the outbreak and clear challenges to opening back up.
As we move through the coming months, the restrictions and guidelines on social distancing measures will vary depending on the rate of infection in the community, with implications for construction activity.
Supply chains
The construction industry supply chain is huge and complex. From energy-intensive manufacturers right down to self-employed tradespeople, the skills and materials that go into building a house, commercial premises or infrastructure are vast.
Supply chain disruption will remain a significant threat to construction activity, including getting jobs completed on schedule and on budget, throughout the rest of 2020 and beyond.
Workforce issues
As mentioned above, the availability of skilled and manual labour could be impacted at any time, depending on the number of people who fall ill with COVID-19 or who self-isolate as a precaution.
The incoming track and trace regime aims to isolate anyone who has come into contact with an infected person – so although total infections at any one time should be lower, the number of people who have to stay at home could still be higher.
Construction site safety
Health and hygiene will be watchwords for construction site safety in COVID-19 until a cure or vaccine is found, which could take many months and may not be 100% effective over the long term.
This ranges from hand washing and social distancing, to greater awareness of keeping surfaces clean – something that is not always easy to achieve on building sites.
How Timbermat can help
Timbermat products can help you more than you might think when preparing a building site for work during the Coronavirus outbreak.
Bog mats give you a solid surface to work on, which can be cleaned down regularly. They also help to define a work area so you can control how many people are within that area at any one time.
Finally, if you need more bog mats in order to spread out your workers more to comply with the recommended social distancing measures, we have timber mats for hire and for sale, so you can give all of your employees and contractors the safe space they need.
