Despite all the re-openings of the economy and the lifted restrictions, COVID is still with us, and testing continues to speed up, not slow down. But testing is in so much demand, especially in hard hit states like Arizona and Texas, where lines for drive-thru testing can be hours long, that many are looking for alternative testing sites.

It has been a deadly week around the United States in the construction industry, with several deaths, injuries and near-misses. It is a reminder to the construction world of the dangers that face workers every day as they go on the job site.

In the first step of reopening the construction in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said on June 5th that he would allow 32,000 construction sites to reopen.

While damage control and preparation is becoming an increasingly important factor in planning our cities, certain extraordinary circumstances are something we can’t plan for but which require quick architectural responses that offer aid to those affected—and often the difference is life and death.

Low-skilled construction workers in the U.K., urged back to work by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, have one of the highest rates of death from the virus.

The IT Network and security company Brash Concepts has begun adding thermal cameras to jobsites in New York City. The cameras measure the body temperature of workers to identify who may be running a fever (an early warning sign of COVID-19).

Businesses all over the globe are facing the ever-increasing challenge of keeping their employees safe and complying with safety guidelines to slow the spread of COVID-19. While many businesses have adopted work-from-home procedures and others have furloughed their employees or shut down completely, essential businesses, including construction, are still operational and finding it more critical than ever to manage the situation. And, as the country at large looks to reopen and get workers back to work, organizations will need solutions in place that can help them operate in the "next normal."

The construction magazine Construction Dive took an in-depth look at what is coming down the pipeline for jobsites in a post-coronavirus world. It listed eight things that it said will changing in coming months and years—some of which will be temporary but some of which will be permanent.

In 2006, in Tugela Ferry, South Africa, an extremely virulent, drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis raged through a hospital—and the building was partially to blame. The hospital was not designed for infection control. The transmission of the disease was through particles suspended in the air, inhaled by patients in a poorly ventilated building with overcrowded waiting areas.

While construction continues in many states, social distancing is remaining a rule on worksites, and it often makes things difficult for workers to move around the building—and especially difficult for site managers to patrol them and make sure they’re following the rules. And not following the rules could, in many areas, land them heavy fines.

With a third of the United States on lockdown, including the three largest cities (New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago), something is continuing unabated—construction. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom labeled construction as an “essential service” alongside things like healthcare and food service. And while some construction projects are easily labeled as essential—things like road repair, and maintenance of water and transit infrastructure, it may be hard to understand what is so essential about the construction of housing or commercial projects.

Italy has been the country hit the hardest by the coronavirus, seeing an almost 9% death rate (more than 8,000 deaths as of March 27th), and the country is struggling to handle the massive need for hospital space. That’s why the architecture firm Carlo Ratti Associati designed an intensive care unit that can be easily packaged and sent to areas in need.

It’s hard not to pay attention to the environment around you during this massive health crisis, whether you’re weathering out the storm at work or working from home (or, worse, laid off). Many people are using their quarantined time to disinfect, clean, and organize, and it has caused many people to reevaluate the spaces they live in and the spaces they hope to return to soon, including public spaces such as hospitals, airports, gyms, offices, and hotels.

Construction on a temporary field hospital started on Wednesday on a Shoreline soccer field near Seattle, Washington. As of March 19th, Washington had over 1300 cases of the virus, one of the hardest-hit states in the country.

All across the nation there has been a dramatic shortage in several essential items, but one in particular is protective masks. While hospitals have masks in storage for their needs, the coronavirus pandemic has all but depleted their stores of the precious safety equipment—and they haven’t been helped by the members of the panicked public who bought through Amazon, and other online retailers’, stocks in a matter of hours. This has left emergency workers scrambling to find masks, with some nurses and doctors resorting to using bandannas and strips of cloth.

Steve Lesser, the chair of Becker’s Construction law practice, says the key words right now are “Wait and see.”

Last week ConExpo went ahead as planned in Las Vegas, bringing in 130,000 attendees to the once-every-three-years event. The expo takes up 2.7 million square feet of space and is truly staggering in its scope. Taking place on March 10, before most travel bans and mass closures were instituted, the expo move forward on schedule.

Even though there have been very few cases of the coronavirus confirmed in the United States, it has already impacted the construction industry in several places and may spread to more.

Even as smartphones are breaking open the world of construction with new apps and technologies that are radically changing the face of the industry, there is a problem that is plaguing job sites and doesn’t seem to have any sign of stopping soon: the presence of mobile phones.

Construction zones on roadways have always been dangerous, and many strategies have been tried to deal with them, including increasing fines for speeding in those areas, increasing patrols by law enforcement, and giving construction workers the power to tag and report reckless drivers.

While OSHA raised their fines a bit, there were no surprises in the areas where they did: fall and excavation hazards led the list of penalties. Falls are part of the so-called “Fatal Four”, along with struck-by injuries, caught in/between, and electrocution. But it was falls and excavation where the fines seemed to rack up in the fourth quarter.

Expected to reach $54 billion by 2023, the wearable tech market offers to transform the construction industry through the ability to improve safety and efficiency.

Drones fulfill many roles in the construction sphere, everything from giving a basic overhead view of the jobsite to maintaining track of materials, machinery and people. Contractors use them from everything from comparing as-planned construction projects to as-built projects, as well as optimizing the grade of the terrain and recording images and videos. Their usefulness can be increased with thermal cameras, mapping tools, and GPS units.

A new study from New York University shows that construction workers are more likely to overdose on opioids than people in any other profession. Much of this has to do with the risk of injury on the jobsite, as well as long working hours where workers may feel the need to take ‘just one more pill’ to get through the day.

Wearable tech has been part of construction jobsites over the last few years, but analysts predict you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

RK Construction, a 55-year-old construction company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, has become a model of what it means to confront mental health problems head on, according to a recent report on NPR.

New York City, which is a hotbed of construction, has a startling problem with worksite safety, and it’s only growing. In 2015, there were 472 construction-related injuries, but that number has jumped a staggering 61% to 761 last year. And the city is cracking down.

Everyone remembers Ellen Ripley donning the yellow construction exoskeleton and battling the mother alien, but did you know that construction exoskeletons are in use today?

While we try to keep you informed on construction news, there’s so much that we at PowerTools can’t cover. Here is a list of ten great construction-related podcasts that can help you keep abreast of everything newsworthy in the industry.

Construction suffers $11 billion in losses every year in damage due to fire, water, theft and—worst of all—worker deaths. Despite construction only accounting for 7% of the work force, 21% of workplace deaths occur at construction sites.

To take the pulse of the construction industry, Grassi and Co. hired an independent survey group to take a three-month survey of the industry in New York, and the results are in.

Construction is booming, and companies are trying to pack as much work into the summer months as possible, but a very real danger lurks out under the sun. According to a new study, construction workers sweltering in the heat are dying at an alarming—and increasing—rate.

A new law in the state of Minnesota allows construction workers to flag traffic violators who are driving unsafely in construction zones.

At a burning apartment complex in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a father had to lean out a window and drop his 2-month-old baby into the arms of a rescuing construction worker. The father was trapped on the second floor. Seconds later, the worker caught and saved a toddler as well.

Last week, after a particularly bad year for workplace accidents, 4000 construction workers took a break from their jobs to take a moment to reflect on safety. More than 50 companies and organizations joined in the second annual Construction Safety Stand-Down, a program hosted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Construction Safety Association

The United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data showing that, between 2012 and 2017, the construction and extraction industries have the highest suicide rates of any industry tracked, growing at a rate of 43.6 (per 100,000) in 2012 to 53.2 in 2017. This problem is not just centered in the USA, but is recognized globally.

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