Covid-19 Associated Risks and Mitigation Strategies relevant for the UK Construction Industry

Abstract

The sudden emergence of the novel coronavirus (SASR-CoV-2) known as COVID-19 has had not only significant epidemiological effect on global population (WHO, 2020), but an adverse ripple effect is being felt by key economic sectors globally, especially in the UK (Al Amri & Marey-Perez, 2020; Jallow et al, 2020). Currently, as over 1.6M have died (65,520 in the UK) and figures continue to rise (Worldometer, 2020), the UK government and others around the world are taking dramatic steps to slow the spread of the virus to save lived. However, the measures taken are also having massive implications for economic activity (Allas et al, 2020; Scally et al, 2020). For example, because of widespread falls in services, production and construction output, the UK GDP experienced the biggest monthly fall (20.4%) since 2007 in April of 2020, The UK's construction industry presently the second largest industry contributing 7% of GDP (HoC, 2020) is currently under stress due the pandemic(ARUP, 2020; Jallow et al, 2020; Jones et al, 2020). The purpose of this study is to identify the Covid-19 risk associated with the construction industry, and ways to mitigate the risk. The main body of this study cover the associated risks, performance of the industry, exiting and finally proposed mitigation measures.

Rights

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.20935/al1485

Repository URI

http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/4678144