2571-1075ISSN (Online)
Volume 4 , Issue 1 , PP: 01-17, 2021 | Cite this article as | XML | Html | PDF | Full Length Article
Ahmed Fahim Elgendi 1 * , Ashraf Elhendawi 2 , Waleed Mahfouz M. A. Youssef 3 , Abdul Salam Darwish 4
Currently, the world encounters the outbreak of an unprecedented epidemic named novel coronavirus COVID -19. World Health Organization (WHO) advises maintaining social distancing, preserving personal hygiene, and staying informed with the latest guidelines. WHO also reports the patients with robust immunity can combat the virus. However, the workers in the construction industry work and live in a crowded and non-hygiene environment. Moreover, they are characterized by illiteracy, a dearth of awareness, and chronic health problems that prove weak immunity. Therefore, this study aims to find the relationship between the virus and the prevailing conditions and the environment of the construction industry, under focus, and study so that the construction industry is not a vulnerability gap that may exacerbate the crisis. An extensive literature exploration for the latest research deals with coronavirus, the construction industry ergonomics, and its relevant diseases. This study makes robust alerts to motivate the governments, organizations, and individuals to collaborate to find solutions to close the gap between the current situation in the construction of ergonomics and the required precaution to avoid the outbreak of the virus. This study makes a crucial and novel contribution by paving the way for providing solutions to save humanity worldwide. The management system should review the conventional risk assessment procedures, and developed criteria must be introduced and become an everyday practice of all construction projects. This will help identify the gaps within the safety procedures associated with the COVID – 19 protection aspects. This article also introduces a framework in this regard.
COVID-19, Occupational Health, Occupational Safety, Construction Industry Health and Safety
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